01/09/2026
Freddie. ❤️
I know I talk about Rosie a lot, but Freddie is a very different kind of dog.
He doesn't really do what most people would consider "normal dog things". He's always been incredibly vigilant and spends much of his time on guard. He doesn't particularly like being touched, and if he's lying beside me on the sofa and I stroke him, he'll usually get up and move away.
Touch just isn't Freddie's love language.
But something has changed.
After refreshing my Tellington TTouch® training with Sue Williamson, I've started using some of the techniques with Freddie again. I first learned T-touch during lockdown, but if I'm honest, I'd forgotten so much of it until I revisited it with Sue.
And now, every night, something quite extraordinary happens.
Freddie waits until I get into bed and put my head on the pillow.
Then he comes and curls up beside me.
I do a little T-touch, and I've discovered that if I close my eyes and simply allow him to be there, without watching him or expecting anything from him, he stays.
Two or three minutes has become fifteen or twenty.
For most dogs, that probably wouldn't sound like a big deal.
For Freddie?
It's HUGE.
This is a dog who doesn't seek out affection. A dog who has always needed his own space. A dog who has spent so much of his life feeling like he needs to be on guard.
And now he's choosing to come and lie beside me.
He's choosing the touch.
He's choosing to stay.
I'm not going to pretend that T-touch has suddenly changed Freddie into a cuddly dog. It hasn't.
And that's not what this is about.
It's about giving him another way to communicate. A way that feels safe enough for him to say, "I actually quite like this."
Sometimes progress doesn't look like a dramatic transformation.
Sometimes it's a Romanian rescue dog who normally wants nothing to do with being touched, quietly curling up beside you at bedtime and staying for another fifteen minutes.
And that, for Freddie, is absolutely massive. ❤️
