TTouch Premier in Brazil

This past week saw the arrival of the Tellington Method in Brazil. Two two day seminars were held for dogs and two one day seminars for cats and rabbits. The participants discovered the TTouch philosophy and the three basic pillars of the work - body work, groundwork and using body wraps and other TTouch tools - with time to practise and experiment with the wonderful animals that were our best teachers. Perhaps the best accolade was the comment made by one attendee: "The dogs that left this afternooon were not the same dogs that arrived this morning." Link, the dog in the photo below left arrived in a highly agitated state and after a little TTouch bodywork was able to relax.

It was gratifying to work with so many committed people coming from various walks of life including holistic veterinarians, physiotherapists, a lawyer who works with therapy dogs in her spare time as well as dog trainers and other professionals in the field. One participant travelled from the capital, Brasília, and another drove eight hours from Belo Horizonte.

The door is now open for TTouch in this vast country!

Link relaxing for TTouch bodywork

Didy with her "Thinking Cap" on.

Head wrap for calm and concentration!

Gearing up after a delicious lunch

TTouch in Brasil!

TTouch really is taking off in Latin America!  In August we will be offering the very first TTouch workshops in Sao Paulo, Brasil. Check the events calendar for more details.

How exciting!

TTouch in Buenos Aires 2013

This year's courses were extremely well attended by a wide variety of professionals across a broad specttrum. We had the usual Introductory course followed by three modules on sensitivities, fears and the importance of observation when working with animals. The participants really did participate and the dogs offered us many opportunities to learn and help the dogs learn how to learn and find new responses which might serve them better in their daily lives than the options they may have found so far. To see anxious and stressed dogs relax and others with physical difficulties find a more comfortable position is more than rewarding.

Introductory Course

Follow-up module

Julieta tries a wrap for her sore shoulder

Australian labradoodle gets his certificate!

TTouch in Badajoz

At the beginning of February we spent a wonderful two days exploring TTouch at the Valle de Mira (www.valledemira.com). With participants from the north, centre and south-east of the country and a wide variety of dogs, ranging from a tiny Yorkshire terrier to a golden retriever, there was plenty of opportunity to practise different TTouch techniques. The sun shone brightly on the first day but, as the photo shows, the second day was bright but with a chill wind.

Buenos Aires Workshops

Once again Buenos Aires proved to be an exciting and inspiring place to work. We had a   great  group of people from different countries - Venezuela, Brasil, Spain as well as the majority of local Argentinians - with a motley crew of dogs whic, as usual, were our best allies and teachers over the weekend, presenting us with opportunities to learn and progress. Some people who attended the one day seminar held in March joined the group for the second day of this two day seminar. This gave me the chance to catch up on their experiences so far. The group was receptive and participative and it has been encouraging to see how many people have been keen to continue to the work  after the seminars. This has allowed them to see the results of their efforts when their dogs were able to deal in a more balanced way with the fireworks at New Year. The best gift for me would be for them to continue to use the work into the future. I am sure many of them will!  

Once again the success of this venture is due in large measure to the dedication and organisational expertise of Claudia and Marcelo with the support of their three sons "Los Africa". A big thank you to them!

TTouch in the Canary islands

On September 22 & 23 we will be holding a two day TTouch workshop in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria at Albergue Rural Brancosole. At this workshop we will be covering the basic concepts and practices of TTouch in all three fields: bodywork, wraps and groundwork.  For further information please go to the Events Diary on this blog.

Wraps enhance Proprioception and Calm Nociception

 Another extract from Robin Bernhard's article.  There are other translations of articles by Kathy Cascade in earlier blog posts.

"Kathy Cascade, a physical therapist and Tellington TTouch instructor, has described how the wraps stimulate the skin and proprioceptive system in such a way that the enhanced information can be used by the brain to make improvements in balance, coordination and movement.  Kathy was talking about the ability to know where our bodies are located in space based upon the feedback system coming from the skin, joints, ligaments and tendons. This feedback system allows the person wearing wraps to instlantly know where the wrapped part of the body is located in space and brings awareness to the relationship between this part of the body and the rest of the body during movement.

Some of the proprioceptive receptors in the skin adapt to sensation quickly and others adapt slowly. Rapidly adapting receptors allow for minute distinctions in the experience of pressure and vibration on the skin. The hair follicles, Meissner's and Pacinian corpuscles all respond to light brushing, light touch and gentle vibration, respectively, by sending immediate brief signals to the brain at the start and stop of each stimulation. This fast on-off information switch allows the body to respond quickly and freshly to each stimulus to the skin so that differentiation of slight changes in skin pressure and vibration can be detected. These fast adapting receptors happen to be associated with the release of oxytocin when stimulated by light touch.

The thermorepcetors in the skin detect warm and cold sensations. (...) There are no  receptors for very hot temperatures in the skin. In fact, the receptors that detect cold temperatures actually fire along with warm receptors when something is hot to create the sensation of extreme heat. This combination of warm and cold receptors firing at the same time is what causes the paradoxical hot/cold "Vick's Vapor Rub" feeling that Jessica described in her legs.

Pain reception also involves both quick acting and slow acting neurons. The quick acting neurons tend to detect sharp, shooting pain and the slow acting neurons tend to detect deep, throbbing or aching pain. (...)

It may be that soothing skin stimulation competes with the pain pathway or the memory of pain. It is reported in the TENS literature that gentle electrical stimulation actually blocks chronic pain receptors. Chronic pain perception is activated by the slow acting neurons. Because the fast adapting neurons bring the gentle stimulation of the TENS to the brain through a different route, it blocks the awareness of chronic pain. The wraps may be generating a similar type of gentle input that competes with and distracts someone from chronic pain.

As mentioned in the brain's rules for change, perhaps the gentle stimulation is new information that contradicts the circumstances under which the pain memory was created and instantly changes the memory. Could the gentle stimulation of the wraps cause a release of a chemical messenger, like oxytocin, that signals safety and suggests to the body that the pain is over? Maybe it is the interest generated from a different kind of stimulation that triggers an orienting response and then permits the completion of the orienting  response and the engagement of the calming ventral vagal system.

There is scientific evidence to support the hypothesis that the engagement of the polyvagal system is part of reducing the perception of pain. In fact, where the vagus nerve meets the heart is one place where pain is modulated. When the heart is pumping in a calm and rhythmic cycle it causes the vagus nerve to suppress pain perception in the spinothalamic tract which brings information about pain to the brain. With the spinothalamic tract suppressed the experience of pain coming from both the spine and from the skin will be reduced."

The Polyvagal Theory and the Completion of the Orienting Response

Another extract from Robin Bernhard.

I feel that this is quite relevant to the work that we do in TTouch. How often are animals prevented from displaying any reaction or feeling?  All the time!  They are inhibited from barking in case it disturbs the neighbours.  They can't jump because someone's clothes will get dirty.  When something frightening happens they can't run away because they are on lead and so on. Just finding a mechanism that will allow them to complete the orienting response, even during things as simple as daily walks, could contribute to make life less stressful for them on many levels. These mechanism could include ear work, Noah's March including our maxim of "Calm the tail, calm the dog".

"Light touching of the skin stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system and provides a natural way for us to calm down. The vagus nerve makes up most of the parasympathetic nervous system and connects the heart, lungs, organs and intestines to the brain.  Light touch of the skin over the heart, lungs and gut triggers both the release of oxytocin and simnultaneously engages the vagus nerve. (...) 

The initial quietude and appearance of the soft eye seen in our group members when they were first wrapped may be a subtle sign of what is called the natural orienting response. When something changes in an animal's environment, certain innate behaviours, such as turning the head in the direction of the change and becoming erect and alert, are all part of this response. Trauma theory describes PSTD as the orienting response stuck in the freeze mode of the fight/flight/freeze/faint trauma response. Animals in the wild either run away or fight unless death is imminent at which point they will freeze and faint before they are killed. This part of the polyvagal system is the most ancient, the dorsal motor portion of the vagal system.

Humans and domesticated animals in modern society are often unable to release fear using this mechanism because fighting or fleeing is discouraged or prevented.  Instead, frozen states of fear and rage are held in body memory, in the cells and tissues. Without alternative ways to care for these reactions we develop the symptoms associated with chronic stress.  When Tellington TTouch Body Wraps stimulate and warm the skin they offer another pathway to care for our stress reactions which can be partially explained by the healthy engagement of the vagus nerve and the ventral portion of that system.

The polyvagal system is actually two systems which can function independently, the dorsal motor pathway and the ventral vagus pathway. The ventral vagus pathway offers the second pathway for handling a stress response. Stephen Porges labelled this pathway "the social nervous system" because it represents a solution to stress or fear that involves social engagement. Infants activate this system when they seek and obtain support and nurturance from parents who create safety through protective and loving actions towards them. The social engagement system includes the face and facial expressions, the neck for turning the head in the direction of seeking help, the chest, the back and the arms for reaching out. When this social nervous system is activated, the ancient fight/flight/freeze/faint reactions are inhibited.

(...)

It is believed that keeping the eyes open stimulates the ventral vagus complex and allows the orienting response to be completed in safety. As we mentioned earlier, the application of the wraps seems to trigger the orienting response in group members. Simply allowing the orienting response to complete rather than be disrupted, as it was at the time of the trauma, is one way of helping to release trauma holding patterns."

The Brain's Rules for Instantaneous Change

An excerpt from an article by Robin Bernhard, Charlottesville, Virginia.

"It is now known that the mind can alter the structure of the brain and memories are not permanent ...

The latest in neuroscience shows that old memories, especialy body memories, are flexible and can be changed; and sometimes they can be changed in an instant.

Every time an old memory is reactivated there is a brief critical period when synapses between the cells firing together temporarily unlock, a process called de-consolidation. If new information enters during the critical window when the old memory is dissolving, instantaneous change in that memory can occur. According to (Bruce) Ecker two things must happen in order for new information to enter an old memory:

1. The memory must be reactivated in order for it to be briefly dissolvable.

2. New information that sharply contradicts and disconfirms the old expectations must be available when the old memory is reactivated and momentarily unlocked.

The first rule of instantaneous change requires that some aspect of a memory is re-activated. The Body Wraps provide both sensory input to the coetaneous and proprioceptive pathways believed to activate the body's memory, even memory held at cellular level. The beauty of the Tellington TTouch method is how cellular memory flies beneath the radar of the thinking mind so that this gentle activation of the body memory can be addressed without catharsis or even conscious awareness. (...)

The second rule for instantaneous change requires that the building blocks for the new information are available at the right moment and sharply contradict the old expectations. Often the issues being addressed through Telington TTouch are issues of trust, pain and/or fear that developed when the person or animal experienced overwhelming circumstances and helplessness. Tellington TTouch is always conducted within the context of a safe and empowering relationship without pain, fear, force or pressure of any kind."

I hope the short extract will help us realise just how important it is to provide new messages to the brain when we are trying to modify behaviours which are causing our companion animals stress.  We may not know what the source of the fear was, but by observing closely and being aware of that critical moment, that "window of opportunity", we can help them overcome traumas from the past which are influencing their lives in the present and are being detrimental to them.