The Sarah Fisher book is a good place to start.
Always practise on yourself or a partner first so that you can get a feel for what you are doing. I practise on arm and shoulder quite often and it's interesting if you try different touches you find that actually there are some you don't like and some you do - it's the same with the animals so well worth remembering.
The key things to remember are:
1. You have to really "listen" to your dog, little things like if you touch an area on their back and they sit down, turn around, or give you a kiss, it is more than likely that they are trying to let you know they're not comfortable with what you are doing.
2. Your breathing is very important, nice, deep breaths, with audible long sighs as you breathe out, can really help to calm the animal down and also help you to stay relaxed.
3. Keep your wrist straight and your hand nice and relaxed as this will help you achieve the very light pressures needed - you should be moving the skin, not the muscle, it's NOT massage.
4. Give them lots of breaks to let them know you're not relentlessly going to do these funny circles on them
Seriously though, I tend to do maybe 30 seconds of touches then take my hands off, then start again. If the animal walks away that's fine, more often than not they will come back to you in a few minutes and it's important that they know they are in control of what is happening as that's key to gaining their trust.
With dogs so often we just do things to them because we think we know best but with T Touch it's more of a two-way street, they let us know what they think is best and we cooperate with them.
5. If there is an area they are not keen on being touched (eg nervous dogs often don't like their feet being picked up or touched) then don't feel pressured to target that area, just take it a bit at a time. It's better to dip in and out of that area occasionally.
6. Vary the touches you use, and also the pressures - I usually start with Llama or Chimp where you are using the back of your hand, as this is less invasive.
I tend to talk to the animal I'm working on in nice, soothing tones, tell them how good they are being, and do calming signals like turning my head away and averting my eyes, plus the nice big sighs.
Jessie where are you based? I know a few people doing practitioner training who will be after case studies (so it's free for you) so there may be somebody in your area. I'm in Lewisham area and still looking for case studies (booked up till September now but after that will be free again).
1 day workshops can be really helpful as well as you can take your dog with you to learn with
Oooh, and a really nice one for spaniel ears is the Turtle touch. If your dog is lying down, place one hand palm up underneath the whole ear. Put your other hand palm-down on top of the ear (so you are basically cupping the ear between both flat palms), then very, very gently roll your hands around (as if you have a soft ball in your hands). You do it nice and slowly so you're basically just moving the skin on both sides of the ear flap at the same time. Bella doesn't like it but it sends Zorro (who's a bit of a loon) to sleep within seconds!
Hope this helps.
