Jigsaw Sr. and pals at Social Tees

Hi folks, above is a picture of my recent pal, Jigsaw Sr. Isn't he handsome? The paw that is draped over the side of the shelf is the one which he doesn't use. He has been very responsive to all the touches I have been doing on him, though he still seems to be more sensitive around his lower back and back leg on the left side, which makes sense as this side has to work harder as the front part of that side does not function properly. I have been continuing to do TTouches on his head, down both sides of his back and strokes and circles down all his legs. Then I make little circles with his toes and do raccoon touches on his paws, around the pads and on the top of his foot, to the extent I am able to reach everything. He signals when he has had enough when he goes up to his little shelf and starts chomping away on his food. He really seems to enjoy the touch and relaxes right into it except for a few sensitive areas.


Above is a picture of me doing TTouch on Buster, one of the teeny tiny kittens, and if you look above left you will see Jigsaw Jr. right in the front of the cage, watching my every move. Very interesting! and if you look closely you can see that I have the little shoestring harness on Buster so that I can hold him securely while I do TTouch on him.

Buster really relaxes into the TTouch, as I do little raccoon touches on his head, ear strokes (which I have been doing every day on these little guys as they came in with kitty colds, which fortunately they seem to be on the road to recovery from), then little chimp touches down each side of his back. Sometimes I will do a few abalone touches on the body. You can see that in the case of these tiny guys, my hand covers nearly the whole body -- and sometimes the big circles of the abalone touch can be comforting. You can see from the photo part of why I use the little harness below (a dog), though the dog seems to be receiving some of the calm energy of TTouch and is taking a nap.

Above is Buster's little friend, Fiona, who is looking much more bright-eyed than she did a few days ago, which is great. She also comes running to the front of the cage to be taken out when I come in the shelter. She is more squiggly than Buster, so I start out by doing the touches at a quicker tempo which is where her energy is, then gradually slowing them down, and that usually will relax her into a more sleepy state and she settles in on my lap.


Above are two kittens who came in a few days ago. They are small, but look huge compared to Buster and Fiona, they are probably 3-4 times as big. This photo was taken a few days ago when they first came in and they were quite shy, flinching and pulling away when I reached to them. The white kitten would hiss, but stopped hissing when I touched her. I started out by alternating from one to the other, just doing a few little touches on the head, then doing some gentle strokes on the ears, gradually increasing the strength of the ear stroke. It turned out that both kittens responded to rather firm pressure of the ear stroke, maybe between 2 and 3. It is best to start out light and then gradually increase, to see what feels most comfortable to the cat.

I am now able to easily pick up both these kittens and to do TTouch on them either in or out of the cage. Initially they still might pull away a bit, but once I begin the TTouch they are very responsive to it. Above you see both the grey and the white kitten, out of hiding and looking more confident (don't you love the two different colored eyes of the white kitten?). Patience is really key with scared cats and kittens, and sometimes you have to start with very short bursts of TTouch (a few seconds) but you can do a number of these little bursts within a session, alternating from one cat to another, giving them a break and leaving them alone for a bit then coming back to them. If you're in NYC, come by Social Tees (http://socialtees.com) and have a look!

Kittens and their new Friends

Yesterday at Social Tees (http://socialtees.com) Shelter I started off again with the two very tiny kittens, first the white one which you see pictured on my previous post. I did TTouch all around her head, and down her body, and little strokes on her ears. The ear strokes seemed to be especially in order as these little guys came in with kitty colds, which seems to be common with animals coming from the kill shelters. They do seem to be getting stronger, and are eating very enthusiastically, which is always a good sign. At any rate, as I did TTouch with the little white kitten on my lap, with the kitten harness to secure her, she gradually fell asleep and was purring a tiny little purr. As I was doing TTouch on her, I also had a damp paper towel and was cleaning off her face with it and doing TTouch through it as well, as these little guys are getting the hang of cleaning their bodies but aren't quite so adept at cleaning their faces yet.

Next I took out this kitten's little black and white friend, who Este (another volunteer at Social Tees) has named Buster, which I think is perfect. Little Buster is even smaller than his friend but seems to have quite a strong little spirit. He really settled into the TTouch, and really responded to the ear strokes, seeming to enjoy a bit firmer pressure than I would have imagined he would like, particularly taking into consideration how delicate and small his ears are. I would say I am using a 2-3 pressure, instead of a 1-2. (For cats, the heaviest pressure I would generally use would be a 3 pressure. For dogs, other larger animals and humans, the pressure can be quite a bit more, depending on the creature's personal taste). I did TTouch on his head, his ears, around his mouth area, and up and down his body. I also used the damp paper towel on his face and on his tail. After I used it on his tail, he started grooming his tail all on his own.


Buster began to purr continuously, and his little purr grew pretty loud for such a little guy. Eventually he put his head down and took a little nap. After I let him stay there for a while, I put him back in his cage.

I put new food out for the two kittens and they both began eating vigorously, even though they had eaten only a relatively short time before. Many times I find that after having TTouch, the cats start to eat their food with a great deal of gusto. Here is Buster chilling out with his pal after having a good chomp.


Next I worked on a little tortoise-shell kitten in a different cage who I posted about previously. This kitten was quite fearful when I began to work on it and its black cage-mate a few days ago, but now the tortoise-shell one is completely outgoing. I took it out of the cage and, using the harness, did some TTouch on it. It wanted to move a bit, but was responding to the TTouch as well. It was great to have the harness so that I could let it move a bit but still have it contained and keep it on my lap or on a table. Eventually I put it back in its cage, and it started to meow very loudly. This was because it wanted me to take it back out.

It was lonely because earlier in the day, its cage-mate had to go to the vet to be checked out. So we decided to give it some new friends, and put it in with the very friendly orange brothers. At first the orange guys were growling and hissing and began to swat. I opened the cage and began to do TTouch on the most friendly of the orange guys who is always in the front of the cage. The shyer orange guy quickly came forward to receive TTouch, and the kitten then pushed to the front of the cage so it could receive TTouch as well, so I was doing the best I could to touch all three, alternating between them, keeping my hands on at least two at a time.

After a while I closed the cage, and went to get the kitten's food from its cage, and put it in its new cage. The kitten has been eating wet food and the adults have been eating dry food. The funniest thing happened next. The two orange cats began eating the kitten's wet food and the kitten began to crunch away on the orange boys' dry food. You can see this in the photo below. I was encouraged that the three were in good harmony with each other at that point. Something else that is rather humorous it that the kitten has a little orange tabby fur at the end of its tail, as though the tail was dipped in the orange brother's fur.

Kitten Harness in Action

In my last posts I showed you how I made the kitten harness on a beanie baby, and here it is in action on a real live kitten. Above is one of my tiny friends receiving some raccoon touches from me while I hold on with the shoelace harness. I had to wash her little face again because she had just eaten so I cleaned it off with a damp paper towel, which I put my finger inside so that I could clean her a bit and then do a few TTouches through the paper towel. After that was done, I used a tiny makeup brush that is for brushing out eyelashes and I was able to brush her fur a bit. I did raccoon touches on her head and raccoon touches and chimp touches on her body. She is a very tiny kitty! She settled right in and at one point put her little head down to take a snooze, making a little miniature purr.

Below you see that while I was doing TTouch on the kitten, one of the dogs also decided to take a snooze. I am sitting up on a table. The kitten is peering over the edge of my leg to see the dog, and is held safely as I have her secured with the little harness.

Below on the right you see her re-joined with her three kitten friends. Later yesterday the two "older" kittens (who are a good bit larger than my little friend and her tiny b/w pal shown below left), were adopted by a nice young woman. I wish them well!

Kitten Rascals and two Orange Boys

Hi folks, the day before yesterday I arrived at the shelter and saw these little punk-looking kitties waiting for me, with dirty little matted faces. Apparently they had just eaten and hadn't learned how to wash up after eating! Another volunteer and I washed them up using warm damp cloths, and they were then clean and seemed more comfortable after that. I also did TTouch on all four (one is behind the three others in this picture of these kittens using the little kitten harness I described in my previous posts, and it worked very well to contain them gently. I think they felt more safe being contained this way when they were out of the cage, as there are grownup cats and dogs roaming around. I did raccoon touches on their head, around their ears, and around their mouths, and very gentle ear slides. On their bodies I did raccoon touches, baby chimp touches and abalone touches. As I mentioned previously, the little black and white one, who is the smallest, became the most relaxed and took a little kitten nap, purring with the tiniest little vibration. When I put them back in their cages, they continued to cluster at the front of the cage. They are so eager for contact.

I also worked with the two slightly older kittens who are in a separate cage. They are still shy but are not hissing when I approach them now. Once I touch them, for the most part, they settle into the touch now instead of moving away.

Below are two orange brothers who are lovely and very appealing. One boy is extremely friendly, hanging out in the front of the cage and talking to people who pass by and he began to touch me with his paw while I was working on a cat in adjacent cage. His brother is shy and generally hangs out in the back of the cage (he's the one you see on the left here). Of course I had to see what would happen with a little TTouch. I reached to the back of the cage toward the shy brother. When I touched his head, he was a bit shy at first but once he figured out that the touch made him feel good, he began to rub against me for more, so I continued to do TTouch on his head and then did some strokes down his body with the back of my hand, along with some chimp touches. Eventually he came from the back of the cage to the front of the cage alongside his brother as you see here, and both cats were rubbing against my hand. They are both such charming fellows, I am sure they will have a home soon, together. If you want to see these guys and the rest of the gang, they at Social Tees (http://socialtees.com/) in NYC, come down and check them out!

Kitten Harness part two

So here is the second part of the clip showing how to make a temporary harness to use on kittens so that you can do TTouch on them and still have them gently secured so that they don't squiggle away. Another nice thing about this harness that you will see is that by simply pulling the end of it, it unravels and you can take it off easily without worrying about the little kitty getting hung up in it. Fit it so that it is close to the body but not tight. When putting it on an actual live kitty, you need to do the putting on of it fairly quickly. I suggest practicing on a little stuffed animal many times, until you are really comfortable with it. before trying it on a live animal. And please ignore how FAST I do the little TTouches in the demo, I rarely do them that quickly! I just wanted to show how you could hold the harness with one hand and do TTouches with the other. When doing TTouch on kittens, in general a rather short session is good but I have to say that these particular kittens responded to TTouch so well, especially in my first sessions with them, that I did longer sessions. The little black and white kitten actually fell asleep while I was doing TTouch on it, purring the tiniest little purr.

Noodles and Petey get in Balance

Hi folks, this past week I was working with my friend Jordyn (http://myspace.com/dancingminddesign) and her dear dogs Petey and Noodles. Can you tell I love these dogs?

We set them up with step-in harness and double-end leashes, which we like to use in TTouch as these tools give us various options for configuring the setup to have two points of contact. This is useful especially for dogs who pull on the leash.

Petey is a long-haired mini-dachshund and Noodles is a mixture of beagle and other lovely types of dogs (seems like there must be some dachshund in there too). Both dogs are low to the ground, so the setup that works best for them is to clip the leash to the two side clips on the harness. This setup is also good for very small dogs, as we saw in the Santa Fe training with the little

Chihuahua Mr. Brown. You can see this setup most easily in the picture of Petey below. One can stroke one side of the leash and then the other if the dog starts to pull, or sometimes spreading the arms further apart can work as well.

Jordyn and I each walked one dog at first, walking side by side, and then switched, so each would get used to being with me. Both of these dogs can be pullers, and Noodles can decide he doesn't want to move sometimes, but I have to say that they were both quite cooperative on our walk. When Noodles did try to stop, I gently pulled the leash and called to him, and after a minute he did come along. Below you see a picture of me with both dogs. The leash we used for Noodles may be a little wide for him so we are going to try a thinner leather leash, and we need to tighten his harness a bit for next time, but both dogs responded very positively to having this leash setup. Below you see me with both dogs. Don't worry, my right hand does not have the leash wrapped around, that is a scrunchy around my wrist! I am actually holding the leash with a light touch.
Good job, Noodles and Petey!