All Wrapped Up

TTouch has three main components - non-habitual touch, body wraps, and groundwork. Last post talked about some of the non-habitual touch, and today is about body wraps! As with all three components, this is but a tiny overview. Lori Stevens does amazing seminars and I cannot reccomend them enough for learning TTouch. I am such a big believer in her work that Cody will be seeing her twice in May for hour long sessions - and the only reason we haven't seen her already is because Lori books up fast!

"Lori, what is foster mom doing to me?"

Wrapping is taking ace bandages or sewing elastics and wrapping them  in specific patterns on the dog. The touch of these items bring body awareness and encourages the brain to think. It can soothe animals in distress through providing a calming touch over the body. Wrapping can also help pop dogs out of patterns if they are "stuck." A young smooth collie was whining during the seminar and Lori provided a thin elastic string that was wrapped around the muzzle and connected behind the head. Within moments the collie had settled down, and once she was relaxed she had no need to vocalize.

In the picture above, Cody is sporting a half wrap. The knot is tied to the side of his spine so no pressure is placed on it. The bandages and elastics are never pulled taut, or even pulled so that they lose their give, yet the elasticity of the wrap allows natural movement. When I wrapped Cody, I dropped opposite ends of the bandages over his shoulders, brought it up under his tummy, and made the tie to the side, making sure that the bandage was relaxed.

Cody checks out the wrap, a little unsure.

Wrapping Cody is still a big deal for him. A wrap is a lot of touch over his body, and I was asking him to let me wrap him in a small classroom full of folks and with other dogs (including the collie) whom he had never met before. He did fantastic with the wrap, and while he did a couple checks he stayed with me and settled into the wrap.

Wraps are left on for 5-15 minutes on average, then removed. Cody spent his several minutes in the wrap, then we took it off and it was time to move onto the third part of TTouch!