Archive for July, 2009

Catcher in the Coop

I am always delighted when the phrase, try it on everything works well for one of my students.  Recently, I gave my tapping class the homework assignment to do some tapping at home.  I encouraged them to tap on themselves or on willing friends, or even on their pets.

One woman mentioned in the first class that she was having lots of problems with one of her dogs.  She lives on a farm where all of her other animals co-exist peacefully.  One of her dogs behaves well in most circumstances, but he keeps killing her chickens and proudly bringing them to her.

Obviously, the dog is some kind of a hunting dog, so my student wondered if it could be possible to tap on an animal to go against his natural instincts.  I have had lots of positive experiences with cats and dogs, so I encouraged her to try.

My student came to the next class and was very pleased to report that the tapping worked!  She tapped around the dog’s eye, beneath his snout, on top of his head and on his paw.  I didn’t teach her about surrogate tapping yet, so she tapped directly on the animal.  She said out loud while tapping on him:

Even though I want to kill that chicken, I’m a great dog.

She repeated that phrase with each tapping point, and after a few rounds, the dog seemed to be totally blissed out.  A baby chick walked right past him and he totally ignored it.  The dog hasn’t chased or caught or killed any more chickens from the coop!

If you have an unruly animal at home, try tapping on it.  You may be surprised at how well it works.