| POSSUM BABIES
June 2004
I (Sarah Fisher) was on a training course for
horses near San Francisco with Robyn. It was incredibly hot and we were in the middle of a
drought. At the end of the day I was walking back to the house when I spotted something
struggling in the swimming pool. A baby possum was clinging desperately to the pool
cleaner as it swirled around the edges of the pool.
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Fortunately the possum was in easy reach and I
fished it out. Another participant was on hand as well and we wrapped him up in the towel
to dry his bedraggled body. He was very weak, freezing cold, limp and in shock. We used
tiny TTouches around his ears and began doing Ear Work - stroking his tiny, finger nail
shaped ears from the base right to the tip. I knew the effects of Ear Work on horses but
was still stunned at the response from the possum. He
came back to life in a matter of seconds, warmed up and became interested in what we were
doing. A cotton bud was fetched and we began doing tiny TTouches around his mouth with the
dampened tip of the bud. He began moving his mouth and licking at the water. Within half
an hour he was sitting quite happily in a warm bed made from a cardboard box and was hand
feeding and drinking water with relish. |
| Later that evening another drowning baby was
found in the pool and after appropriate TTouch work, he too was popped into the box with
his sibling. They were checked periodically throughout the evening and early the next
morning, and they were both alert but settled in their temporary home. Three more babies were found in the yard by other participants
during the day but as they were only in need of food and water they were put straight into
the box without receiving any TTouches.
The difference between the TTouch babies and the other
babies was marked. When food was being put into their box the two TTouch Possums ran over
to take the food whilst the lid was still open. Their eyes were bright and their coats |
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| were gleaming from all the self
grooming they had been doing. The three unhandled babies however hid, hissing and
displaying defensive behaviour when the lid was raised. Their stress levels were really
high. Their eyes were hard and staring, their mouths were open and their coats were dull.
Although this work is not about forcing the TTouch on every animal that comes our way,
there was concern later that evening that the three un-TTouched babies were not feeding.
We took them out of the box one by one and did a few minutes of Ear Work and lightest
TTouches on their body to see if they would settle. The
result? Five fat, shiny possum babies, feeding well and ready to be moved on to a
temporary home before being released back into the wild. Prior to doing TTouches on the
other three youngsters it had been easy to tell which were the babies that had been in the
pool as the behaviours were so different. After all of them had been worked on it was
impossible to distinguish between the pool possums and the yard possums. It only took a
few minutes to change and possibly even save the lives of these little animals. This story
is not unique. There are countless testimonials from around the world from people who have
literally saved an animals life by using the TTouch techniques. |
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