what is
tellington ttouch?
About the
Tellington TTouch Method
The Tellington TTouch is a teaching method for animals that incorporates bodywork and ground exercises where appropriate, to help improve co-ordination, balance and athletic ability whilst deepening further communication and understanding between the animal and its owner/carer.
Tellington TTouch helps increase levels of self-confidence, self-awareness and self-control. Developed by Linda Tellington-Jones, along with her sister; Robyn Hood. Tellington TTouch is used widely in many countries across the world by shelter assistants, dog trainers, zoos, veterinarians, therapists and pet owners.
With its roots in the Feldenkrais method of Awareness Through Movement, TTouch techniques gently guide the animal through non-habitual exercises that can alter existing habitual patterns. As posture affects behaviour, many owners and carers note that unwanted behaviour diminishes as the animal’s posture improves. TTouch teaches the animal to act, rather than simply react to a situation, it allows animals to make positive choices.
TTouch blends well with many other modalities and training methods including Concept Training, clicker training, BAT (Behaviour Adjustment Training), lure and reward etc. It is not necessary to adopt the whole TTouch philosophy in order to make a difference to an animal. Learning just a few of the simple body TTouches and movements can help make a difference to an animal’s life.
Linda Tellington-Jones demonstrated bodywork
The Component of Tellington TTouch
1. Observations, how we see our dogs, how they move, looking at their coats and identifying the link between their posture and behaviour.
2. Bodywork, the hands-on touches, which include circles, slides, and lifts, also, the use of body wraps. These non-habitual movements of the skin can help reduce tension and teach a dog to act rather than react to a situation. These touches, whilst looking like a form of massage are much lighter and do not benefit the muscles but open up new neural pathways to the brain that can often be blocked by tension and stress. Tellington TTouch is also a wonderful tool to help you build an incredible bond with an animal in your care and we always say that we don’t do Tellington TTouch to our animals but for our animals.
3. Groundwork and leading exercises. This helps dogs to walk more confidently by influencing their balance and posture. We will often walk a dog on a harness with 2 contact points to help influence their physical balance that in turn will influence their mental and emotional balance.
4. Equipment. In Tellington TTouch we use certain pieces of equipment that include two anchors or point harnesses, double-ended training leads, calming coats, body wraps, poles to make up our confidence course, wraps, wands, surfaces for dogs to walk over etc.
The Different Elements of the Work
Tellington TTouch is not restricted to dogs, our practitioner, Alex Wilson, has worked with a multitude of animals including:
Sam Clarke, UK Champion Agility Competitor
“My journey with Tellington TTouch started with my older dog Holy to support her with some HD symptoms. When Tizzy then qualified first time for Olympia Alex reinvigorated my interest and knowledge in TTouch by using the practice to support her pro-perception, balance, body awareness, muscle performance along with the emotional balance it brings to. Tizzy suffers with cobalamin malabsorption (Vit B12 deficiency) this effects her emotions and central nervous system amongst other symptoms. TTouch brings her the emotional balance and release needed to support her happiness. Tizzys performance is enhanced by our TTouch sessions, being able to use the knowledge not only in our performance plan but also at the competitions themselves to keep her emotionally balanced and muscles ready for action. She continues to achieve great and consistent results at both Olympia and winning the British open Agility round and second overall at Crufts along with reaching every Championship final we competed in last year. My learning is now being used on my youngster Gold, here getting used to his TTouch half body wrap and leg wraps to support his body awareness during our groundwork sessions and to ensure he uses his muscles correctly and learns balance”