TTouch at Whiskers: Aug 21

Today I went again to do TTouch on the cats at Whiskers Holistic Pet Store in NYC. I was told that Marty had been adopted, but wasn't told til after I worked on Doc (the black and white cat pictured below) and Lorraine (the tabby pictured above) that Lorraine and Marty had been quite connected and that she was really missing him. I had noticed while I was working on these two that she kept coming to the door of the cage as though she was waiting for someone but I wasn't sure what that was about, as she had done that a bit the week before and I had assumed it was because she was waiting for food. This time I think she was waiting to see if he would come back.

This time I used a feather on both Lorraine and Doc, doing strokes down the sides of they body. When working directly with my hand, on Doc I mostly did small TTouches on the head, as he can become overstimulated quite quickly and swat or bite as a result. So I would work on him in quite short bursts, giving him frequent breaks.

With Lorraine, I sensed she was most responsive to a comforting touch, so I did slow, connected abalone TTouches down one side of the body and then the other. I would do a pause at the end of each touch, giving her time to process the work. She seemed to be really responsive to the slow, big TTouches. I also did a bit of Reiki on her as well.

As I am getting around to writing this post rather belatedly, I have to put here that this story of Lorraine and Marty actually had a happy ending. The following week, the person who adopted Marty came back to the store, as poor Marty had been so sad without his pal Lorraine. The person adopted Lorraine as well, so these two sweet cats are in their forever home together.

TTouch at Whiskers: August 13

Today I went to Whiskers Holistic Pet Store, where they always also have a few rescue cats in the window. I went to do TTouch on these cats today, and met for the first time three lovely rescue cats, Marty (below)


Lorraine (pictured below)

and Doc (pictured below).

All three were quite eager to receive attention, but were a bit over-stimulated (I think they were also near their mealtime so were anticipating food). This being the case, I alternated between using a wided, long-handled flat paintbrush, using a feather, and sometimes using my hand. Particularly Doc can get over-stimulated so I did extremely short bursts on him. I kept alternating from one cat to the next, and this worked quite well, as it is really good to give cats frequent breaks, particularly when they tend to get over-excited and can potentially swat, bite or scratch when this happens. When I used the paintbrush or feather, I did gentle but firm circular touches and strokes down their back, and occasionally did touches on their head as well.