Possum Babies
By Sarah Fisher
I 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
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. |
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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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