Kittens and Cats at Social Tees

Yesterday I went to Social Tees (http://socialtees.com). First I worked on the three shy kittens above. I had worked on them the other day and the session had begun with them all hissing at me. This time, the two in the top picture did not hiss at me so I did TTouch on them directly with my hand instead of using the feather. The black and white cutie on the bottom was still hissing and growling but was less intense about it than before.

To get the more scared kitten used to having my hand in the cage and have it used to me being there, I began with TTouch on the other two kittens, particularly the grey and white cat as it seemed the least scared and was closer to the front of the cage. I did raccoon touches on the head and around the ears, ear strokes, and on the body I did baby chimp touches, llama touches, and in some cases just the back of my finger went in a circle, as these are really tiny little creatures. The grey and white kitten moved away at various points. At one point it started climbing up the side of the cage. At those points I moved my hand away and focused my attention on the black and white kitten. The grey and white kitten then would come back towards the front of the litter box again and settle down. Intermittently, I would also do ttouch on the head and body of the black kitten, when it was possible for me to reach.

As for the black and white kitten, each time I went towards it, it would initially hiss and growl a bit. I persisted, and touched it initially with a feather, stroking its head, around its ears, and down the body with the feather. The hissing would then subside, though any loud noise that would happen in the space would startle all three of these kittens, they are still on very high alert. At any rate, with the black and white cat, there were a number of moments where it truly was able to relax with my hand doing TTouch on it, several times I saw and felt a sigh, and then a relaxation as it grew more accustomed to me. I kept each little burst of touching short, as after a while it would get scared again and hiss at me, so at that point I would switch to working on one of the other kittens. At no point did any of the kittens try to bite me. Altogether, I would say they are feeling increasingly safe there, it will just take time and patience, as whereever they were previously must have been extremely traumatic.

I then visited with the three kittens I had worked on previously. Now the two stripey cats are TOTALLY friendly, wanting to cuddle and be touched. The black and white kitten is still shy - not hissing or biting, but just introverted and afraid of being touched. I did some gentle, soft chimp touches on its body and around its ears. I'm sure it will come around very soon.

I visited the adult swirly-stripe cat who now only initially hisses when you put your hand in the cage, but after a few circles with the wand and corn dog, I worked my hand down the corn dog and was able to do TTouch over its entire body and head - ear touches and strokes, hair slides, and connected abalone and clouded leopard touches down the sides of its spine.

The two tabby girls are still there as well. The small one is still completely receptive to TTouch and the all-tabby girl is making her own kind of progress. When I first looked at her today, she blinked and blinked at me, instead of having the frozen, terrified-looking stare that I am usually greeted by her with. When I went to touch her with my hand, she still was scared of this and began to move away, but I found that if I start with the wand and corn dog, I can quietly transition to doing TTouch using my hands on her. She still needs quiet, patient attention.

As always, these cats, as well as a number of other cats and dogs and other animals are up for adoption at Social Tees, so if you are in NYC and looking to adopt an animal, check them out!

Santa Fe TTouch Training: Jennifer and Booba

Above you see Kathy Cascade (left) with Jennifer (right) and her dog Booba. Booba has a wrap (Ace bandage) on her, which was very helpful to bring down her stress level.

Booba finally hit the doggie jackpot when Jennifer adopted her from a shelter, where she had been for a way-too-long period of time. It is often hard for pit bulls and pit bull mixes to get adopted, especially when they are extremely fearful, as is Booba.

Jennifer had already done a lot of patient and positive work with Booba, but Booba was able to make progress up to another level during the training. In the beginning, it was very difficult for her to be anywhere near other people or dogs. By the end of the training, she was able to lie on the floor looking quite relaxed with her head towards the center of the circle at times, and I was able to sit quite close to her without her being afraid.

Kathy worked with Jennifer and Booba in the TTouch training in Santa Fe in a very thoughtful, respectful, clear and caring way. The homing pigeon used quite a lot. This is the configuration shown above using two leashes. It is especially helpful with fearful dogs as it is a way they can become used to someone other than their owner walking with them.

A full wrap was used on Booba. Below, you see Jennifer walking with Booba, who is wearing a full wrap, which adds a wrap around the back end of the dog in addition to the half wrap.

Jennifer, Kathy and Booba did a lot of work together on the confidence course. Other people and dogs in the class were careful to be mindful and give Booba the space that she needed in order to feel safe.

I really appreciate the patient way Kathy chose to work with Jennifer and Booba, and I give Jennifer so much credit for giving Booba such a loving, safe home and admire her dedication to helping Booba achieve as much comfort as possible in the world. Thanks Jennifer, Kathy and Booba for teaching us so much about the power of patience and kindness.

Jazzy the little Goose

Above you will see a clip of charming little Jazzy, a baby rescue goose who is living with Terry and her many animals (see previous post) on Little Falls Farm, and who I had the opportunity to do TTouch on as he sat comfortably next to me on the couch. As you can see, he is a charming little guy - enjoy!

Fun at Little Falls Farm

Friday I visited Little Falls Farm (http://littlefallsfarm.tripod.com/) in Long Island. I met Terry, her husband and two of her goats at Amelia Kinkade's animal communication seminar some time ago, and had followed up with Terry about visiting her farm, where she has about 20 goats, as well as a number of chickens, a couple of pheasants, peacocks and some other types of birds, about 8 cats, 4 dogs, a rat and a little baby goose.

As for the goats, for the most part I kept my work on them in short spurts. The most receptive of the goats was a baby named True Blue, or Trudy (pictured above) which had been bottle-fed, so it was the most acclimated to people, and it happily stood there as I did ttouch and ear strokes on her long ears, and hair slides, zigzag, abalone touches down her back. She was very affectionate and turned around and looked me right in the eyes.

Diamante (on left) and Show Stopper (baby on right)

My Symphony and Show Stopper

I did some TTouch on the baby girl on the above left, My Symphony, as Terry held it. It had a very cozy look on its face as I worked on its head and around its ears. I also did some baby chimp touches on its body, which it responded to very well.

Another of the young goats, Heavenly Delight (above), who I had met before at the animal communication seminar, was also quite friendly with me, but she wanted to walk, so I followed her a bit, doing a few strokes, giving her a break, then trying again. I did abalone touches down the sides of her spine and some gentle strokes down her legs.

I also did some light Noah's march and llama touches w/the back of the hand on some of the male goats.

After this, Terry introduced me to the chickens, pheasants and other birdlike critters. Above you see the pheasants, George and Gracie and below you see a peacock named Thing (some of the animals have names following an Addams family theme) with unusual coloring (unfortunately it's hard to see the beautiful blue markings around its head), and to the right is Larry, Moe or Curly, not sure which!

I had an opportunity to touch Dori (pictured above left along with Ash on the right), who is a "Silkie", which looks like a fluffy chicken and its feathers are so soft, they feel exactly like rabbit fur. Shortly after this, it started to rain.

At this time, we moved inside and I had a chance to visit and work on one of the dogs, several cats, and the baby goose, named Jazzy.

Jazzy, or Goosie, was rescued by someone else and Terry took it in. The little downy goose stays in a very large crate inside sometimes and other times she lets it walk and hop around the house, all the while making a little cooing sound. She let it out of the crate and I put my hand gently on its back and started doing some light abalone touches. At this point the goose sat down, straddling the arm of the sofa as I touched it. AWW! It settled there for a while, seeming very cozy as I lightly did the touches on its back.

Later, it was walking around on the floor, and you could see that the dogs, cats, etc were very respectful to Jazzy as well as to each other. It really is lovely to see this variety of creatures coexisting peacefully.

Here you see Jazzy with one of the cats. I have to say that Jazzy is quite a charmer, he truly touched my heart. I will post a clip of him walking around and cooing in a separate post.

And of course I did some ttouch also on several of her 8 or so cats and 1 of her 4 dogs. The dog I worked on, who has arthritis, laid right down on its side and did not want to move from its position. The cat pictured above is Half-Pint, a darling little fellow who had been extremely shy but certainly seems to be less so now. He came up to me to receive some TTouch and seemed to be interested in climbing into my bag as well.

Wow! so as you can imagine, when I got home, I was pretty tired. Thanks Terry, for sharing your wonderful crew with me, I truly enjoyed visiting with all of them.

Cats and More Kittens at Social Tees

The day before yesterday I was working at Social Tees (http://socialtees.com),

and was asked to work with some very scared kittens who had just been brought into the shelter, pictured above. These three were very much more scared than the last batch of 3 (which I'll talk about later), and were fiercely hissing, showing teeth and flattened ears (and the kitten pictured in the litter box at the bottom of the above pic was also growling) when I opened the cage.

Before touching them, I spoke to them calmly for a while, telling them that I was going to be very quiet and gentle with them. Then I took a feather about 9" long and did gentle circles around the head of each cat, spending a few seconds on each one at first, to get a sense of what I was dealing with. The b/w cat continued to hiss and growl but didn't try to snap, the one on the top left stopped hissing shortly after I touched it and the black one on the top right continued hissing a bit but not as intensely. I alternated from one cat to the next doing the circles with the feather on their heads and then gently stroking down the body with it. The top left cat soon grew comfortable with this and so I gently worked my way down the feather with my hand and was able to touch its ears and body with my hand before too long. The black cat on the top right hissed every now and then, but by the end of about 15-20 minutes I was able to touch it on its body as well. The b/w cat on the bottom continued to hiss and growl for a while, but little by little this lessened, and I did manage to touch it a bit with my hand on its head before I left. I hope to visit these three within the next few days, as I feel (and hope) they can continue to make progress quickly if the TTouch is reinforced within a short period of time. It's as though they are reminded that yes, touch can feel good and that contact is something they can enjoy instead of fear.

I also visited the other 3 kittens I had worked on 2 times before, and they continue to be extremely friendly, especially the swirly-striped one who had been the most frightened when I first started to work on them. Now it rubs its whole body and face against my hand and arm, and today it practically came out of the cage with me. when I took my hand and arm out.

I spent some time today with the two stripey sisters and the swirly striped cat who I have worked on before and they continue to make progress. The swirly one hissed when I opened the cage, but after just a couple of strokes with the corn dog, I was able to do chimp touches and llama touches with my hand.

These cats and more are up for adoption so check them out if you are in NYC!

Brooklyn and the new crew at Whiskers

Yesterday I went back to Whiskers in NYC (http://1800whiskers.com/) to work on the rescue cats there. I was happy to see that two of the cats I had worked on previously, Hamilton and Beyonce, had been adopted, hooray! Brooklyn (the black and white cat pictured above) is still there along with two other cats, Rascal (black cat w/green eyes) and Emily (tabby). Rascal and Emily are brother and sister so Whiskers would like to adopt them out together. I could tell that these two were EXTREMELY connected.

One of the staff advised me that Brooklyn had come out of his shell a lot since I saw him but that Emily and Rascal needed some encouragement to come out of hiding.

Upon entering the enclosure, all three cats were on perches way up high. I began to do some small circles on Rascal and Emily with the wand and corndog (ace bandage wrapped around wand), and shortly after this, Rascal began to come down to where I was. I sat down and called to him and he actually came over to me, followed by his sister Emily. They both seemed to really long for attention. I first did ear touches and touches on the body with the back of my hand, Noah's march, llama touch and chimp touch, which they both really loved, and were rubbing themselves against me. Rascal was particulary interested, and kept calling "meep, meep, meep" whenever I paid attention to one of the other cats. Every once in a while I would locate Brooklyn on one of the perches above. When I put the wand w/the corndog up there, he wanted to play with it. I tried touching him with the second wand, but he wanted to play with that as well.

After a good while of TTouch, Emily went back up on her perch above. I had been able to do ear strokes with a fairly strong pressure, as well as TTouch on just about every part of her body. Rascal remained near me, asking for more TTouch. While I was working on him, Rascal and Emily's former foster mom came by to visit and was pleased that I was doing TTouch on them, she remarked at how relaxed Rascal looked. He had been pretty ramped up when I started working on him, walking back and forth, rubbing himself against me. After this, I had a moment with him when he looked me straight in the eyes and we had one of those powerful moments one can have with a cat when they seem to stare right inside of you.

After Rascal decided to go back to an upper perch for a nap, I managed to lure Brooklyn down to where I was with just a couple of little pieces of dry food. Once he was down near me, he seemed in an over-stimulated mode, with tail going back and forth, but he kept coming closer to me, would rub himself against me, let me do a few touches, then he would go back away again. We did this a number of times. Each time he came closer to me, he seemed to sit beside me a few seconds longer.

After a while he swatted at me to let me know that he had enough.

This was quite a move ahead for Brooklyn - a week ago, he stayed in his little cat tent the entire time I was there. He seems to now be longing for and seeking out attention, he is just still a little cautious, so needs a very patient approach.

All three of these gorgeous cats are up for adoption, so contact Whiskers if you are interested!

Keeping Cool with the Cats and Kittens at Social Tees

Yesterday I went back to Social Tees, particularly because I was interested to follow up right away with the three kittens I had worked on the day before, as we had made a LOT of progress in one session. The atmosphere there was a bit more hectic, with a new dog in the space, but the progress was amazing. I just had to remind myself of a concept which Linda Tellington had taught us about, called heart coherence (more about that sometime later), and to remain in the moment with the animals. The little kitten with swirly stripes, who had been the most reluctant with me, almost immediately started rubbing its entire body against my hand, coming out of a sitting position, stretching up on its slim long legs as it rubbed itself along my hand and arm, and then grew a little playful with me as well. The black and white kitten was very comfortable with me touching it, and after a momentary flinch, the other little tabby kitten was very comfortable as well. As I was working in the front of the shelter, the staff at Social Tees had been able to observe the changes in the kittens over the past day and were delighted. These little darlings are up for adoption (see photos in yesterday's post), as are the other cats I discuss here, so give them a call if you are interested!

(http://socialtees.com/)

I also had the opportunity to work again on the two tabby girls, who continue to grow more comfortable each time I work on them, as well as a new lovely stripey cat, pictured above. This cat drew its head back and hissed at me when I first gently approached it with the wand and ace bandage (known as a corn dog), but I persisted, speaking gently to the cat and doing very gentle circles with the corn dog on its back and around its face. As Kathy Cascade (http://spiritdog.com)/ showed us in the last training, I moved my hand further and further down the wand towards the cat's back until I was touching it with both the corn dog on my hand. Gradually I began doing chimp touches and llama touches on the cat's back, then on its head and around its neck area, as I felt the cat's body grow more and more relaxed. By the end of the session, the cat was so comfortable that it was curling up and getting ready to go to sleep.