Friday, July 27, 2012

The TTouch workshop - part 3...

The last component covered in the workshop was around movement work - this builds confidence, improves focus, and encourages balance (mental, physical and emotional)

Below is a video of Dandy working three separate movement exercises.  The first is slowly walking over the mini jumps the second, walking on and across a mat of rough plastic grass and the third moving through the Labyrinth.

One may find themselves asking "why might this be helpful?"  Some of the benefits of movement exercises are that they positively influences behavior, performance, coordination, balance and well-being, while deepening understanding and the relationship between human and dog.  The movements are done slowly and with stops to allow the dog to feel in balance.  This is much easier said than done as I experienced first hand!  For us humans who are go, go, go this slowing down is helpful to everyone involved.

As you will see, Dandy was amazing - this course was done at the end of the day which was long day for a dog like Dandy. You can hear, there was a plane going by and you can see all the people watching us and the other dogs in the corral area as we were working.   To add one more twist for Dandy, I had him try out a double ended leash. It hooks to the front of his wonder walker and on top of his wonder walker, you can see he didn't miss a beat.  Pretty amazing considering when he first came to us he was scared to be on leash.



Dandy on the plastic grass mat

Slowing down - easier said than done for me!

All finished and saying hi to Dandy's new friend



1 comment:

  1. You guys did an awesome job! We were cheering Dandy going through the Labyrinth. We love all your posts about TTouch. It's a very interesting method.

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