Unplanned Opportunities

I like to think that I'm pretty educated about dogs. That I understand their ethology and psychology, and that I know how to train them to encourage them to work alongside me. Without fail though whenever I start to get comfortable in my knowledge a dog knocks me back and shows me that while I may call myself a "trainer," I will forever be their student.

Please forgive the blurry photos - I only had my cell phone handy. Cody and I have done a single TTouch session before and it involved acclimatizing him to the touch of the wrap. I took a couple days break and figured I'd have at least one or two more sessions before doing an actual wrap on him.

Imagine my shock...

Cody wanted some of the scrambled egg from my dinner, so I grabbed a piece of the egg and fed it to him while I placed a doubled-over wrap under his chest. No reaction from Cody. I moved it back under his belly, a more sensitive area. As long as the food kept coming, he didn't care. I draped it over his neck and under his belly and tied it into the quarter wrap seen above. No problem. He followed me into the kitchen to get more treats...

I decided to go a little further and did the poor version of the full wrap seen above. These are not well-done TTouch wraps, but are instead wraps done in haste. I needed to give him frequent treats and since the wraps took two hands I had to choose between exact wraps and high rate of treating! Right now I am focused on him accepting the touch of the Ace bandage. More exact forms will come in time!

Dogs move at their own pace, and often us impatient humans are wanting to move faster than the dog should move. Sometimes though the opposite happens - we move too cautiously, not yet realizing how much the dog has changed, and they give us the opportunity to catch up to them. Special needs dogs are amazing teachers in particular, as Cody demonstrates to me frequently. Fortunately he is patient with his slow-learning human and doesn't correct me too often!