Clumps of chimps falling out of the trees following the crack of overloaded branches. The loud rustle of leaves as the chimps break off fruit. And behind the anthill, Harriet has been grunting, playing patticake, tickling, teasing, playing, and wrestling with Tober for over 30 minutes.

The sun is shifting and it’s time to move my towel another 2 feet around the tree. Uh, Oh, Chimp attack! Sandy comes up and starts playing under my towel. I’ve taken my socks and shoes off and I quickly stuff them under the towel. But Tobra rushes up and pushes Sandy away, grabbing a sock in the melee and off he triumphantly tears.

Sock tag, sock tag, off they run, up and down the trees, slapping the ground, teasing, leaping onto a branch which comes crackling down and whomp!, a chimp thumps onto the ground, leaps up and gallops off.

After ten minutes or so, the sock, stretched, chewed and slightly the worse for wear, drops out of a tree into Harriet’s territory. Got it!

I give up, pen and journal go into my pack, and I deposit it in the safe hands of Patrick. No chimp dares to take it from him. And I join Harriet in chimp wrestling. Tara has taught Harriet how to play. By gently taking Harriet’s hand in her mouth, Harriet has learned to trust her. They somersault roll, patticake, and wrestle. Sandy soon joins her and it’s two to one for the chimps.

I observe for a bit. It looks like too much fun to pass up, so I get into the act. Now it’s two chimps to two humans. Sandy and Tara leap on us, somersault and land upside down in our laps. I swing Sandy around by an arm and a leg and he can’t get enough. Harriet has Torah hanging by the feet and swinging. What a barrel of monkeys!

I spend a good 30 minutes carefully grooming Torah. He flattens out his belly, head resting on his arms, and loves every second of the attention. When he was playing earlier he would close his eyes, race toward me and somersault into my lap.

6:45 a.m.,Zambian time, this time! Tracy and I make cheese and toast sandwiches. Add a coveted Swiss chocolate bar, hoarded until this moment.

7:05 a.m. Everyone–Sheila, David, Harriet, Tracy, Mark, Patrick and I, hoist a clinging chimp onto our hip and parade down the road into the woods. Here, all 9 chimps are set down and the adventure begins. Each day they venture into the forest for 7 hours for walks and just to scatter about, sit in the trees, relax, eat fruit and learn. Rita wants to hold my hand and tries to convince me to pick her up. But she needs the exercise. Her 30+ pounds are a lot to pack on my hip.

Chimps gallop along behind Patrick, spread out on both sides of the trail, 14 humans mixed between. They drink out of mushrooms 9 inches across, then knock them over and gallop on. Up a tree goes Coco to bring down a mouthful of orange nuts, fruit inside.

Sandy, Tara, Rita, Cora, Boo Boo, Tobas, Donna, Coco. Donna discovers a piece of burlap sack and a chase ensues. Up and down trees, over stumps, diving between close branches. “Watch out!” Tobas’ trick is to swing a branch on someone’s head.

We stop for a break after 30 minutes of walking. Some youngsters climb up a nearby ant hill and into the branches of the tree on top. Sandy hangs out with Harriet who works on his ears to help his cold. My camera comes out and I start the fun of photographing cavorting chimps.

Donna suddenly swings by and grabs our back pack which is lying against a log upon which Tracy is sitting. Tracy yells at her and makes a lunge for the pack as it is being zipped away. Tobra reacts to protect Donna by biting Tracy on the calf. Patrick leaps up and yells at him. Up the ant hill he tears. Tracy is in considerable pain. Two blue holes appear. The skin is severed over these two tooth marks, but it is not bleeding externally. Her calf is in spasm. I start TTouch, working first about six inches all around. Within 15 minutes the pain is reduced by at least half, and the wound is shrinking before our eyes. Thirty minutes later the tooth marks have disappeared and there is absolutely no discomfort!

We continue on our way through the woods.

Starting today, all my new posts will be published at TTouchworld.com. See you there!

Dear Linda,

I know your are very busy but I still will send this. I have started TTouch on my horse about 6 weeks ago. He is a 17 hand Warmblood, turning 7 years in April. He had a bad start in Germany. I have reason to believe he was pushed hard as a 4 year old and tore some muscles in the semimembranosis area..down the back of the hind leg. I doubt if he was given proper care but just turned out..probably lame.

He is hot blooded and reactive and I have had one bad accident with him…rearing and bucking left me with a smashed face and broken wrist. He was coming back from stall rest after an injury to his annular ligament right after I got him home from Germany. He was 5 yrs. old at that time and not well broke. I didn’t know him very well.

After a year of work he is getting better and better in mind and body and your exercises have really helped. The mouth exercises did wonders to his reaction to the bit. It was amazing.

My problem is that he is easy to load in the trailer but once in there he gets very impatient and paws constantly as we go forward. He throws his head around and rocks the trailer back and forth. He will be in a sweat when we arrive at our destination. I have trailered out once a week for several months and tried going on short trips every day but he still continues to get stressed. I do put him on ranitidine (Zantac) to protect his stomach when going to a lesson. The trip to the lesson is only 20 minutes and I do not take the freeway because he really hates the sound of the traffic.

I need to be able to trailer this horse and I am afraid he is going to eventually hurt himself. Any ideas how I can improve this situation?

Thanks,

“bluesky”

My response:

Dear “bluesky,”

Good for you for taking this trailer situation seriously.

The danger of him exploding is far too great. In addition it is unfair to put him in this stressful situation. All that pawing and head tossing is his way of communicating his fear. Strange when you stop to think about it, it is so obvious.

So what can you do to overcome the fear? Improve his balance – not just physical but also mental and emotional balance. Stroking smoothly with the wand from underside of the neck down the front legs to ground him – over the back and down the hind legs. Outline the belly and front if the back legs. Coiled Python TTouches from elbows to hooves and hocks to back hooves.

Other TTouches and exercises to help with trailering anxiety:
Slow Ear TTouches with lowered head;
Walking over a wooden platform (or plywood),
under plastic (or pool noodles) to accustom him to the roof of the trailer;
Walking between plastic to overcome claustrophobia.

If an exercise or obstacle makes him tense, reduce the difficulty to make him successful. You do this by reducing fear rather than by flooding the nervous system or by forcing him.

I recommend doing the exercises in the last chapter of my book, The Ultimate Horse Training and Behavior Book. If an exercise is difficult, celebrate that and chunk it down – make it easier – and proceed step by step.

Many years ago I left Ella Bittel to work with an 18 hand Warmblood Grand Prix dressage horse named “World Star.” He was stabled with Klaus Balkenhol and was very talented, but no one had been successful at loading this horse. Ella worked with him daily for a month with the steps in my book and taught him to load quietly. Interestingly his dressage improved greatly by the combination of Tellington TTouch and work over the obstacles from the ground.

Visit my website (www.ttouch.com) and read the study by Dr Stephanie Shannohan on the effects of the Tellington Method on the reduction of stress for trailer loading. This study won a student award at the University of Guelph school of veterinary medicine.
I would very much appreciate hearing from you as you go thru these steps and happy to answer any questions. Good luck and enjoy the journey as you come to a new level of connection and replace the fear with intelligent choices.

Aloha,

Linda

The chimps have met us gently, taking our hands on theirs. Sandy, one of the 14-year-o1ds, has a cold. I work on his ears and he hugs the wire and sticks his ear out to me. Cooo reaches out and grabs the money out of my pocket. Sheila rescues it just in time.

From 5-6 p.m. is the time the chimps try to break out, so David must go carefully around all the cages checking the wire. We make a tour of the 7 acre enclosure. An enormous wall surrounds it, 15 feet tall with electric wire planned for the top. There will be a lower strand of electric wire at 5 feet. The resourceful chimps will most likely break off branches and lean them against the wall to scale it. David feels that they should know the wire is electrified before they get up to 15 feet, touch it and fall back so far.

Only the gate remains to be finished, and the roof of the cement holding areas, and the wire around the top. David figures another 2 months.

The area is heavily wooded and grassed. We sit around the outside table in the twilight discussing TTouch and TTeam.

Sheila treats all the Zambians in the ranch compound (village) and is very interested in TTouch.

8:30 p.m. Darkness descends. The 9/10th full moon lights the African night. We go into the house for dinner of boiled potatoes, stew, squash and mixed veggies. And directly after, fall into bed. The generator is turned off and we wash up by the light of the kerosene lanterns. Our rooms don’t have mosquito nets. I learn the next day that malaria-carrying mozzies don’t buzz and don’t leave an itchy spot. Who knows if we’ve been bitten or not. Within the first week that Tracy arrived with Mark from England, she contracted malaria. Tracy had only been on anti-malaria tablets for a week. Same with me. Tracy’s malaria started with intense fever and dizziness. It lasted about a day, which she spent mostly sleeping and returned lightly a week later with weakness. David and Sheila get malaria frequently in spite of 16 years of anti-malaria tablets.

This exchange reminds me of my time in Zambia and New York City TTouching apes and monkeys. I spent only a few brief moments in passing with a beautiful baboon female under the streets of New York City at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, where thousands of animals are kept for research. I can see and feel her beauty and her desperate eyes as though it were yesterday. The consciousness that was present was so clear that I wonder how we humans can be so unaware. I was at Sloan-Kettering research at the time discussing the fate of 6 pig-tailed macaques scheduled to be sold to a biomedical research center by Hunter College. I met with the veterinarians in charge of the Hunter College apes to convince them that we could offer a worthwhile life in retirement instead.

Through my Animal Ambassador program we were able to bring the 6 pig-tailed macaques to New Mexico and rehabilitate them. We put them together in a living situation where they had fresh air, a diet of fresh fruit and vegetable and a relatively stress free life. Two of the six had daily free range of my 10-room office building and the other six went outside (through a cat door!) to an outdoor area where they could watch the neighborhood activity.

This was after 16 years of sitting on wire in tiny cages, separated where they could not see each other, and fed kibble and some sort of jello-like food in the Hunter College psychology department. It’s not to be believed what we humans do to other beings. Our senior macaque, Gaia, raised four cats from tiny kittens, in spite of the fact that she was captured in Indonesia and was apparently too young to have had offspring. She was incredibly gentle with the kittens and “tamed” them with amazing intelligence and gentleness.

I am grateful to Debra for all she is doing as an ambassador for chimpanzees. Their stories need to be told. Look for the upcoming publication of her book, the Chimpanzee Chronicles: Achingly personal stories revealing the heartache, grace & truth about captive chimpanzees and their humans.

I thought I might share with you a story from the archives, so to speak. It’s from my 1990 journal

1990 Africa! At long last. I made it.

In November Carolyn Bocian from the National Zoo in Washington D.C. sent me information about AN APPEAL FOR FUNDS TO HELP 17 ORPHANED CHIMPANZEES IN AFRICA. The privately operated Chimfunshi Wildlife Orphanage in Zambia urgently needs your support in building new outdoor facilities for 17 young chimpanzees confiscated by government authorities from wildlife poachers and smugglers. The number of salvaged youngsters living at Chimfunshi grows year by year as the Zambians try to enforce laws against commercial trafficking in baby chimpanzees obtained by shooting and poisoning their mothers and relatives. Many African countries are being hard pressed to supply infants for biomedical markets. The Chimfunshi Wildlife Orphanage is the only sanctuary in Africa accepting confiscated chimpanzees. Confiscation programs in many other countries depend on its continuing operation and expansion. This Zambian action illegal wildlife trade therefore must be encouraged by international support. David and Sheila Siddle, the Directors of Chimfunshi, have single-handedly managed and supported this project since 1983. Their private resources are nearly exhausted. Outside financial aid is urgently needed to finish constructing an outdoor compound where the orphans can live as a normal social group.

December 19th Harriet Crosby and I boarded a plane from Zurich to Lusaka, the capital of Zambia.
December 23rd We arrived at the ranch just South of the Zaire border, smack in the middle of Africa. The Siddles were contacted by telex by Dr. Gaza Teleki, and we were told they would be expecting us.
We were really flying by the seat of our pants. We were told there was no space available into Lusaka – even the waiting list was full – and we had no luck making connections to Chingola, where we had been told by a World Wildlife advisor to fly. We managed to get on the plane and arrived in Lusaka at 9:30 p.m., only to discover there had never been a flight to Chingola. The closest airport was Kitwe but they didn’t fly there tomorrow.
On the ride into town, with a kind airline employee who drove us because it was too late for a taxi, we were informed that we’d better have a good reason for being in Zambia because any white people were most likely to be mistaken for South African terrorists!

It was a most educational experience getting to Siddle’s ranch. We flew to a town 100 kilometers from Chingola, where we were to telex friends of the Siddles, but the telexes were shut down for Christmas. Thirty hours after we arrived in Ndola, Harriet ran into a British woman who took us to an American Lutheran minister friend of hers. He very kindly called around northern Zambia until he found someone who knew the Siddles, got careful directions, popped his family in his fancy van, and drove us three and a half hours to the Chimfuhni chimpanzee sanctuary.

Dave and Sheila were relieved to see us, knowing we were enroute, but having no idea where!

CHIMPS: We had a cold beer sitting under a long thatched roof with handmade table and chairs. The view is spectacular, over a river flood plain with several hundred acres of grass bordered by forests as far as the eye can see. In the rainy season the river overflows and the plain is covered by water. A lawn stretches out from the sitting area. Left of the lawn is an enclosure with 12 orphaned baboons, previously very gentle and much-handled by David and Sheila, but now isolated for attacking strangers. They’re waiting for release.

An orange orchard borders the far side of the lawn–with geese and wild ducks. On the right is the house, and all 17 chimpanzees. We met the chimps and were warned to keep the glasses out of reach. They love to take them and scrape the floor!
The 9 youngsters were on the outside. Beyond were the older groups, directly attached to the living room. The whole living room “wall” was wire, looking directly into the chimp cage.

When any chimp is sick it is taken into bed with Sheila and Dave–if young enough to diaper. If not, Sheila sleeps in the straw with them.

5:00 PM–Patrick, the trusted keeper who has been with the chimps for 5 years webt off duty. Sheila and Dave fed everyone their ball of meal, cooked and mixed with vegetables and garlic. All the chimps are very gentle and orderly in their receiving of the food.

Stay tuned for the next installment from my Zambia Chimp Journal!

Dear Linda!
Yesterday I had to say my final goodbye to my 30-year-old beloved horse Raffael. In a great cooperation of a homeopathic veterinarian and Tellington TTouch, Raffael could die peacefully and without pain although diagnosed severe colic. Attached you find a close description of last nights happenings with the title “Raffael´s last goodbye-A case report on how Tellington TTouch can offer a valuable terminal care” , because I feel that the world should know about the incredible possibility of palliative care and terminal care for animals and humans with Tellington TTouch.
–Susanne Liederer, Vienna

Raffael in early 2011

RAFFAELS´ LAST GOODBYE
A case report on how Tellington TTouch can offer a valuable terminal care
Raffael was a 30 year old chestnut horse. After a rainy night on the grazing land in May, he suddenly suffered from a severe circulatory collapse and colic. When I arrived at the stable, he got infusions of electrolytes. When I touched him, he felt very cold and suffered from pain. His stomach was tight and his organs did not work properly anymore. But most of all, I recognized, that he was afraid. He felt, that something was happening, but was kind of overstrained with himself, the pain and the situation with people standing around him. I immediately started with Tellington TTouches on his tight stomach and waited for Martin and Tanja to arrive. Months before, I have already talked through such an emergency with my veterinarian, a genious in homeopathy and holistic veterinary medicine, so he had not injected any kind of invasive medicine so far.

When Martin and Tanja arrived, and people left, we started the Tellington work, and immediately felt, that Raffael had not yet made his decision what to do. During the next 5 hours, after the Vet left for other patients, he received Tellington TTouch. The energy in the stable changed significantly from confused to calm and reflective. In a Tellington TTouch break, when everybody left except of me, Raffael started an amazing conversation with me, while I was sitting in his stall. We shared pictures, like a movie, from all stations of our graceful, wonderful shared years. I saw them from his point of view, and received so much love and devotion, and sent those feelings right back to him. After this movie, he looked me straight into my eyes, his whole being seemed much more grounded by now, and seemed to ask :“But what about you?“ I answered, that it was about him only now, and that his decision would be the right one, for everybody. The Tellington work had not only calmed Raffael so far, but also myself. After one hour break, we started the Tellington- TTouch once more. When the veterinarian came back, he had to diagnose, that his condition of the colic got worse in the medical point of view, but that he had no explanation and previous experience with a horse in such a painfree and calm condition correlated with such a severe colic in a dying process. After one more hour of an excellent cooperation of homeopathy, medicine and Tellington, we finally sent the Vet away, and refused any surgical or invasive intervention.

When we left Raffael in his stall around ten o´clock in the night, we did so, because he clearly asked for it. He stood there in his being with such an incredible, peaceful,painfree and holistic energy, that we knew, he could say his last goodbye to his life in harmony. It was around three o´clock in the morning, when everyone of us, who helped him through his last night, woke up and felt him saying „thank you and goodbye“. Before that, he visited me as an incredible light of peace to bring me back my soul dues, I have given him as a child, many years ago.
He died sleeping and peaceful in his stall that night.

This groundbreaking experience of my own, that Tellington TTouch is a method to provide a palliative care and terminal care to die in peace with oneself in a world of pushing and pulling shall be shared with everyone who is searching. Every living being has the right to die as peaceful and strong as Raffael did tonight. I will give anything it takes to promote this work in order to establish it in every medical palliative care, human and veterinarian.
My deepest gratitude to Linda, Martin and Tanja for their healing hands and my husband Thomas for being there.

Raffael- you lived your life as a legend, and this legend will go on.
SUSANNE

Raffi

Angelita steps out with a leader on each side. Photo courtesy Jorie Hanson, Clayton Patch.com

Take a look at an article about Jakie Forbes’ use of TTouch in training horses for the track here.

I particularly love the following from the article:

First, we want them to be aware of their own bodies. Like humans, young horses are awkward. We want to cultivate their sense of balance as well as an awareness of the power of their hindquarters. Without such training, they naturally place the bulk of their weight on their front feet, leaving them without the controlled sense of thrust and balance that they need in order to carry out any of the performances that we so admire in horses, whether it be dressage, jumping or racing.

Although one person traditionally leads a horse, we often “double lead” when we are doing the training. The horse seems to feel more secure with a person holding a lead attached to each side of the horse’s halter. The leaders are safe and work as a team to help the horse stay in balance when facing the unfamiliar.

So many details and signals make interaction with horses more pleasurable and safe. At the same time, the horse is learning a great deal about its potential for communication and movement in harmony with humans.

Enjoy!

I will be doing the same on Tuesday the 21st at the fund-raiser in Santa Fe so if you are in the area call my Santa Fe office at 800 854 8326 for the venue and details.

I thought you might enjoy this blog post, reprinted with permission from the author, Kirsten, on her lovely blog, Peaceful Dog.

Aloha,

Linda

T-Touch Transformation
Tonight Your Dog’s Friend hosted a TTouch seminar given by Linda Tellington-Jones, the founder of this transformative therapy for animals and humans.

TTouch right in front of Lamar’s ears starts to help him relax

This was not just learning new techniques of movement, training, touch, or behavior modification, this was learning an entire new way of thinking and approaching everything in our lives.

TTouch right in front of Lamar's ears starts to help him relax

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A few new thoughts/consciousnesses/paradigms:

• For a dog or person who is really in pain or shock, work on the ears. Place thumb behind ear, fingers in the depressed area just outside the inner ear. Rotate. Gently pull the ears outward and up. For a dog, begin with the circle at the base of the ear, then stroke outward.
• To calm a hyper, on-the-move dog, hold down the tail with a flat hand over the butt.
• Act as though animals understand everything you’re saying, because they do.
• The book Dogs That Know When their Owners are Coming Home by Rupert Sheldrake.
• Dogs’ minds work in pictures, so the pictures we project to them are important. This is only the most recent of the many times I have heard this.

Real-life applications.

Lamar is on the bed, Fozzie is approaching, Lamar is beginning to snarl. We do small circles over Lamar’s ears, visualize Lamar smiling and relaxing calmly as Fozzie approaches, and say “Lamar, thank you for protecting the bed. You are really an outstanding dog and are doing such a good job, but you don’t need to anymore. We’ve got it covered.” Meanwhile, with the other hand we are asking Fozzie to sit a bit farther away, and doing some circles on his ears as well.

For so many of us, myself included, the growling lunging reactivity is so stress-inducing and the natural response is to tense up and react ourselves. Dog tenses up and growls, we tense up and imagine our dog tensing up and growling, dog tenses up even more and we yell at him or otherwise “correct” him.

“Lamar, you are doing such a fantastic job!”

What if, instead, we train ourselves to respond to the growling by sending out a picture of our dog relaxed and happy?

"Lamar, you are doing such a fantastic job!"

What if our immediate response to a growl is to smile, breathe, and tell our dog what a great job he’s doing as we create relaxing circles on his ears and help manage the source of his stress (by, for example, asking Fozzie to sit farther away from the bed)? What if we imagine our dog calmly handling the situation just perfectly, with complete poise, confidence, and well-being? 

It seems this would have the potential to transform not just our relationships with our dogs, but our entire way of moving through life, being with our families, dealing with small stresses as well as existential terrors.

Fozzie, bouncing all over the place a minute ago, now so relaxed he can barely hold himself up. The proof is in the sensation of meeting the people who have fully embodied this way of thinking. I have felt it every time I have seen Pam Wanveer, who practices right here in Silver Spring and radiates calm knowingness, but with laughter and humility. It is impossible to feel stressed, or to avoid smiling, in her presence. And I felt it with Linda tonight.

Fozzie, bouncing all over the place a minute ago, now so relaxed he can barely hold himself up

May my dogs–and my people–experience this same peaceful well-being and confidence in their own potential for transformation.

The 2 months have been action-packed with the following trainings. Our first stop was in Switzerland for a week-long dog training. Then; Germany at Klaus Balkenhols stable where I gave a day-long seminar for dressage horses for 135 members of Xenophon; a 3-day Advanced training for horse and dog practitioners at a German spa; 5 days of private work at a phenomenal dressage stable near Munich; a very exciting 3 day workshop in Italy featuring 5 leading event and endurance riders; a day-long training for care-givers at a senior home in the north of Germany; a week-long TTouch for You training at a German spa, and now this week-long human TTouch training in spectacular mountain country south of Vienna that was formerly the summer vacation spot for royalty. There is a fairy-tale Disney-like castle just up the road that was formerly a Rothchild summer home.

We had a remarkable experience yesterday. We took 12 TTouch-for-You students to an Austrian refugee center and did TTouch on about 30 women, children and men from Afghanistan and Russia with unbelievable results of pain relief. One man who had been tortured and another who had his skull and arm broken by police in Russia said they were pain free at the end of the session. They were all Muslims so it was amazing that the men allowed women to touch them according to the doctor in charge. These are refugees who are moved from country to country never knowing where they will land next because the governments will not take responsibility for them. It was deeply rewarding to be able to give them “the Magic 3 TTouches” – Mouth, Ears and Heart Hugs – to relieve pain and fear, and I am hoping in the future to take a group of TTouch Pracs to volunteer in one of countries where “Helping Hands” – a British organization – send volunteer health-care givers into refugee camps.

Four of the people we worked on yesterday, who had been traumatized and in much pain, reported no pain after the TTouch session. We had only a few words to get feedback from some of them, and with others the translator told them to give a thumbs up if the TTouch was ok or good, and thumbs down if there was more pain. It worked like a charm and more and more people kept coming for TTouch in the 2 hours we were there. I TTouched one woman for about 45 minutes who reported a 9 to 10 pain level since Cesarian surgery 4 months ago told the doctor she felt no more pain. What I appreciate is that the pain relief gives them hope for the future.

I am constantly reminded of the power and simplicity of this marvelous TTouch, and so grateful with the TTouches we can leave with people so they are empowered to help themselves. I have collected dozens of “TTouch Mini-miracles” I will share on my blog.