Tellington Method™
(Tellington TTouch Training™)

Bodywork, consisting of different ways of touching the animal. One type of touch is the circular Tellington TTouch, in which your fingers gently push the skin in a circle and a quarter. Other touches include strokes and slides, using your hands in different ways to provide different effects, and lifts, in which the tissue is lifted gently against gravity and supported as tensions release. TTouch techniques help to increase awareness, speed healing and relieve tension. Mindful touching helps us to feel areas of tension, or where the animal has concerns about our touch. The significance of this is that there are consistent relationships between behaviors and tension patterns, and relieving the tension can change the behavior.

Groundwork in the “Confidence Course.” Leading techniques – and there are many to choose from! – are explored to find ways to have the dog or horse walk in balance so they can fully experience the exercise. You observe them as they move in and around the elements of the confidence course, and with TTouches and other TTouch tools, help them to negotiate it easily and confidently. Their increased awareness of themselves and the postural changes that come about allow them a new experience of themselves and their environment that carries over into “real life.”

Behavior: There are many strategies of working around our animals’ behavioral problems so they no longer interfere with our lives. However, though life may then be fine for us, these issues can continue to have serious consequences for the animal.

With dogs, “bad” behaviors include barking, shyness, leash-pulling, hyperactivity, nipping, aggression, jumping-up, not listening, to name a few.

With cats: clawing, biting, litter box issues, feral qualities, night crying, aggression, etc.

With horses: bucking, rearing, aggression, fear, issues with trailering, tack, vet or farrier, etc.

TTouch recognizes that emotional, physical and mental states are interwoven, and that bringing one into balance does the same for the others. This is achieved through a combination of the bodywork and groundwork. Slow, gentle, powerful and profound, TTouch helps our animals gain confidence, develop a clear sense of themselves within their bodies and learn to be able to focus.

Stress: Some behaviors caused by stress are familiar, including hyperactivity, withdrawal, inappropriate urination, separation anxiety, compulsive chewing, and so on. Less often, we realize that stress causes increased heart and respiration rates, compromises the immune system and interferes with normal digestive, respiratory, cardiac etc. function. Associated tension patterns can cause joint inflammation (arthritis) and pain, to the extent that the animal may be reluctant to be handled.

Insecurity: Insecurity may be reflected in separation anxiety, fear of thunder, timidity, “dependent, one-man-animal” behavior, aggression, and so on. We may not really be aware of the degree of insecurity if we provide predictably comfortable and safe routines and environment, and if we avoid “problem” situations. If the animal is not showing insecure behavior, it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s not suffering from chronic stress and its associated physiological aspects.

Health: Tellington TTouch does not take the place of veterinary care, although there are many ways in which it can be used to promote recovery from injury, surgery and disease. Its profound ability to reduce stress and pain is a large part of this, and one sphere where this proves invaluable is in the rehabilitation of wild animals, who need to be handled and be calm, yet not be tamed. Several veterinary surgical nurses use the ear work to help settle animals during examinations, and speed their recovery from anesthetic. TTouch is used in several veterinary practices, during the physiotherapy following surgery, to restore awareness and function to areas that have been damaged; and in animals whose mobility has been compromised, to help restore ease of movement without putting undue stress on other parts of the body.

In the San Diego and Zurich Zoos TTouch has been used to help animals cope with necessary veterinary care. Tellington TTouch Training has a Veterinary Advisory Board of nine international veterinarians, whose support and input has been invaluable through the development of the work.

Training: Training and socialization are a big part of many solutions. Tellington TTouch can play a role in making both easier – by reducing stress, teaching the animal to move beyond what is instinctual and to learn how to learn, and by helping to improve self confidence, self control and focus. A consequence of this is that they become better students – for home-schooling and the classroom!