TTouch and Reiki with Tuco: Learning to Trust

Tuco is a beautiful black kitten who the police brought to BARC shelter (http://barcshelter.org) several weeks ago. She had been abused, apparently hit in the face, and the skin on her jaw was completely scraped off, and teeth knocked out as well. She has received medical attention from the wonderful vets BARC uses and a lot of TLC from everyone. She was understandably terrified of people at first, but she has been feeling more and more confident and comfortable each time I see her. I noticed that she often gets frightened when a hand is coming towards her, especially towards her head or face area, so sometimes I will touch her on her back first. But most recently what I have tried is just very gently touching the top of her head with the back of my fingers, doing the lightest strokes and circular TTouches. This seems to help her to be more receptive to the approaching hand, instead of swatting at it or moving away.
And, what has been wonderful to see is that often after doing some of these gentle touches with her, she will move forward on her own for more contact. Sometimes she moves forward, then retreats again initially, but then I touch her again very lightly, first on the head, then some gentle strokes down the body using the back of my hand (which is less intense than the front surface, and she will start to come forward again. The other day, when I took these pictures, she surprised me by leaning completely into my hand and arm, and pushing into me, then rolling on her back.

As you can see below, I am only using the back of my index finger (actually my fingernail) to do some gentle circular TTouches on her. I am just touching with enough pressure to move the skin around in a circle and a quarter, and I make the circles slower and slower, for a more relaxing effect. It is so important, too, to slow your own mind down before beginning to work with a frightened animal. Sometimes it is as if I hear my thoughts slow down like a record going at a slower speed.
Another thing I do with her if she starts to get into a mode where she wants to swat at me rather than have my hand make contact, is to stop for a few minutes, just sending her Reiki energy from a couple of feet away. When I do this, I see her body start to relax. She usually will lie down and her eyes get very sleepy. And then I will try again with some gentle TTouches.

The picture below was right after she had pushed her head up into my hand and was looking a bit surprised about doing that, I think! But you can see that her body posture is stretched out and relaxed in these pictures, not hunched up and tense.

Over the past couple of weeks, Tuco has realized she loves to play. Sometimes, as in the picture below, her facial expression looks as if the act of playing is a new discovery to her. It is so lovely to see her fear melting away and her true sweet, whimsical personality come forth. Many thanks to all those at BARC who have been so kind and understanding to her, as they are to all the animals at BARC. See you soon! xo

Shows of Understanding and Trust: Walina and Camilla at BARC Shelter

Sometimes when I am at the shelter, I want to help the cats in ways that may, in the moment, not be so comfortable, but will ultimately bring them relief. Often, I sense that the animals understand that I am trying to help them, and instead of resisting and pulling away, they relax and cooperate. Following are two recent examples of this.

Walina (above) is a sweet kitten, perhaps about 5-6 months old, who recently arrived at BARC shelter after being retrieved from within the walls of Assemblyman Joe Lentol's office (story at http://www.brooklyneagle.com/categories/category.php?category_id=31&id=40629). She has a very gentle, sweet personality, and came right onto my lap after I opened her cage. I did some gentle strokes and TTouch on her, and in the process of that, I discovered she had a giant mat in her fur, which must have been pulling at her, as it was very close to the skin. I really didn't want to startle her, but I did want to remove the mat. I was given a pair of scissors, and, speaking very gently to her, put two fingers around the matt, in between her skin and where the scissors were, so I had no chance of cutting her. I was surprised that at this point she didn't flinch at all, as this was definitely starting to pull on her skin. She remained curled up, completely relaxed in my lap. In a few cuts, I had cut the biggest part of the mat completely off. A few small tangled matted areas remained, and so with my fingers I began to separate and untangle these small matted places. This took a while to accomplish, and all the while, she remained relaxed and still for me. After about ten minutes, the whole area was completely tangle-free. I thanked her for being such a great sport, and kept her for a while on my lap, and she took a little nap there. Especially after what this small being had been through, I was really touched by her trust as I did this.

Another sweet cat who has shown this cooperation and trust is Camilla. Recently I had to comb out her tail, as her fur had become tangled there. I have worked with Camilla a lot, so she is very comfortable with me, but can be sensitive about things such as having nails clipped etc. However, she seemed to know that I was going to help her feel better as I gently brushed and combed her tail, then cleaned it with a wipe. This process took about ten minutes, which can seem like a long time. At first I wasn't sure how she was going to react, but I think she must have sensed that this would make her more comfortable, so she curled up and relaxed on my lap as I did this. After I finished, I thanked her and did some TTouch and Reiki with her so she could end up on a very relaxed note.
Many thanks to these sweet cats and to the other animals who teach me so much every day.