Getting in TTouch at ICAWC By Sarah Fisher

I have recently returned from my fourth International Companion Animal Welfare Conference (ICAWC) and it definitely remains my favourite event in my TTouch year. ICAWC was developed by its organisers, Dogs Trust, with a belief in working towards a world where no healthy companion animal is destroyed for want of a caring home with responsible owners.

ICAWC is dedicated to:

Elevating the level of care for companion animals

Promoting positive animal welfare legislation

Developing and promoting educational programmes to encourage better understanding, appreciation and care of companion animals

Assisting animal welfare organisations in strengthening their projects

Providing a platform for the interchange of ideas that impact on companion animals

Through "Strength in Numbers" making the world a better place for companion animals

The conference offers shelter helpers and those working to improve the lives of companion animals around the world the chance to meet, gain knowledge and ask advice from an array of speakers who all give their services for free. Many delegates that attend the conference are working in difficult situations with very limited resources. The price for each delegate to attend the conference may be minimal but for those who travel from countries such as Russia, the flight expenses alone can be equivalent to one month's running cost for their shelter.

ICAWC is held in a different European city every year and I have been lucky enough to have been invited to speak at the conference for the past four years. Since the first ICAWC in 1996, ten conferences have been organised by Dogs Trust and although initially the conference was only held every eighteen months, its popularity grew quickly and ICAWC is now an annual event. Workshops are held on the first day and are followed by two days of presentations. Each Presentation is around 40 minutes in length and listening to the other speakers is both an inspiring and humbling experience. I am glad to say that I have not missed a single presentation since my introduction to ICAWC and as a result I have had the good fortune to meet some truly remarkable people. Their stories are often extraordinary and some are even changing the cultures of the countries they are working in through education and awareness of the important roles animals can play in our lives. In 2007 my vote for best speaker went to Anneleise Smillie, the (now former) Director of Education for Animals Asia for a presentation on the Dr Dog and Professor Paws programme that this outstanding charity run in Asia. Through these two programmes, the culture of seeing dogs purely as a food source is changing.

Pioneered by Animals Asia Founder, Jill Robinson OBE, the concept of animal therapy in Asia began with just one dog and a vision to promote animal welfare through people welfare. Dr. Max - a gentle golden giant - was allowed just one hour in the garden of the Duchess of Kent Children's Hospital in 1991. It was a visit that was to mark the start of a positive change in the public's perception of dogs and following in Max's healing paw prints, the Dr. Dog programme has grown dramatically.

Over 300 'Canine Consultants', registered as official Animals Asia animal therapy dogs and teams of enthusiastic volunteers make regular visits to hospitals, disabled centres, homes for the young and elderly, orphanages and schools, spreading warmth and unconditional love to people in need in 6 countries across Asia.

Eddie was waiting to be slaughtered for human consumption

Amidst the sea of misery and suffering in an animal market, Jill found "Eddie" - painfully thin, covered in bite wounds and trapped in a rusty cage with 3 other frightened, miserable animals. He was waiting to be slaughtered for human consumption and licked the hand of anyone who reached in and gave him a few seconds of comfort.


Eddie, after his rescue, with Jill Robinson. Dr Eddie is now a much loved Ambassador for the Dr Dog programme. Eddie is a favourite with hospital staff and has his own Chinese nickname - wherever he goes he is greeted with cries of "Wong Jai!" - "Yellow Boy!" by the friendly nurses! Following magazine and newspaper appearances, Eddie is also becoming a local and international star, having appeared with Jill on CNN's "TalkAsia" and National Geographic's "Dogs with Jobs". Eddie is now the narrator and star of his own film in the Animals Asia "Friends....or Food" video: "Dr. Eddie - Friend....or Food?".

Professor Paws is the brain child of Anneliese who came up with a unique combination of improving the declining English Language and literacy skills of local children in Hong Kong while promoting positive ways in which companion animals can enrich lives. The Professor Paws Pet Cadet programme is an expansion on the outstanding success of the Dr Dog programme.

Many children in Hong Kong, especially those living on public housing estates, have never had the chance to touch a dog and parents often tell their children not to do so because they think dogs are dirty or carry diseases. The Professor Paws Pet Cadet Programme changes these beliefs. Dr Dogs visit schools where they become an incentive to help students overcome their shyness and to ask questions in English. They have been proven to increase social skills and literacy whilst motivating children to learn. As part of the programme, each child makes a "Pet Cadet Promise" to love and care for all animals, and then writes their very own special promise. Some students promise to take good care of their pets, whilst others vow to never eat dog, and to teach others to be kind to dogs. Thousands of children have benefited from the Professor Paws Pet Cadet Programme

Some of the wonderful Professor Paws won the hearts of primary school and university students alike at a workshop organised and hosted by City University as part of their students' final year project.


There are of course many excellent speakers at ICAWC and this year was no exception. Day two started with a wonderfully humorous talk by Peter Kiraly, a specialist small animal vet, who attended the first ICAWC in 1996 and was inspired to set up his own shelter to help the stray and abandoned animals of Budapest as a direct result. Peter is a wonderful ambassador for companion animals and is the founder of the Rex Foundation Animal Shelter which has rescued and re-homed many unwanted animals whilst raising public awareness (and funds) through brilliant campaigns and education programmes. Many excellent speakers followed but the final presentation on day one, given by 'Pen' Farthing, was the one that touched me the most. Pen was a marine and was serving in Helmand Province in Afghanistan in 2006. After stopping an organised dog fight, Pen was adopted by the dog he then named Nowzad.	Professor Mui Mui enthrals his pupils, who just can't get enough of him!


Nowzad minus his ears and tail which had been cut off by his captors in preparation for a dog fight.	Nowzad (so named as he was battered and scarred like the town of Now Zad where the marines were based) followed Pen everywhere and obviously told the other stray dogs that Pen had been unknowingly appointed as a Dog Guardian. RPG and Jena, strays that were very under nourished and didn't look as though they would survive the onslaught of the Afghan winter, crept into the military compound. They were followed by a white bitch the lads named Tali, who crept in under the gate carrying 6 little puppies, followed by an injured dog, who was to be called AK, bringing up the rear. To complicate matters Jena had 8 puppies as well. In a quiet corner of the base Pen, and two fellow Marines Dave & John, built the dogs a modest run of sorts and for the dogs added safety they added on a mortar shelter for them to hide in, which luckily also provided some warmth during the extreme winter nights. The dogs had obviously made the right decision and went from scavenging food to eating two decent meals a day, courtesy of the left over military rations that the Marines didn't eat.

Pen had already decided that he was going to try and get the dogs to a better life but as he was stuck in the small town of Now Zad he had very limited communications with the outside world. With the help of his wife back in the UK they managed to track down an animal rescue centre in the far north of the country thanks to the help of the Mayhew Animal home in London with whom I am also proud to have connections, through my work as a TTouch Practitioner.

As Pen explains "So the difficult task of persuading a local Afghanistan driver to take the dogs all the way to the rescue in the north - a journey of several days - began. Eventually we found a taxi that would take the dogs some of the way to Lashkar Gar and then they would be exchanged with another driver for the journey to Kandahar and then swapped again into another vehicle for the drive to the rescue. We had a few issues with this as we knew that the vehicles would be stopped by the Taliban at road blocks and for that reason the driver wouldn't let us put the dogs in cages, (a very British thing to do - definitely not an Afghan method of transporting dogs), so we had to tie the dogs up with rope and put the puppies into small crates, (Jena's puppies went into an old bird cage!), not something we were entirely comfortable with. I knew if the vehicle doors were opened without the driver paying attention then there was a chance one or two of the dogs would escape......"

When the vehicle left for the epic journey carrying the dogs of Now Zad that had been, for the last three months, a source of comfort for some of the lads and had given them a sense of achieving something positive, the feeling of whether they had done the right thing was at the front of their minds. Not knowing what would happen to the dogs next was only slightly comforted by the fact that if they had left the dogs in Now Zad death would probably come sooner rather than later from starvation or cold. They might even have succumbed to one of the frequent attacks by the Taliban.

Travelling to the rescue had at least given the dogs a shot at a safe and cared for life. It was something the Marines were willing to risk. Living in Now Zad was no life for the dogs. Finally, via a phone call from the UK, the lads found out the fate of the dogs; Tali, Jena and Nowzad and 13 of the 14 puppies had made it to the animal rescue. RPG and AK had escaped when the car door was left open. One of the puppies had been stolen.

The Marines' celebrations were tainted with sadness. They had no idea when and where RPG and AK had escaped and there was no way they could go looking for them, but it wasn't all bad news. Pen managed to get Nowzad, and Tali back to the UK and set up a charity that provided funds to transport Jena to a new and wonderful life in the US. The charity also helps other dogs in Afghanistan. Pen's story of how he helped the Helmand dogs is incredible and very moving. You can see a similar presentation to the one he gave at ICAWC at the ICAWC *website. Click on 2009 and scroll down the presentations to find Pen's, but be warned - you may need your hankies! And you can also purchase his book.

My talk was on day two. This year's presentation was on changing habits through TTouch. I told the story of one of my foster dogs Cookie Dough Dynamo, and a wonderful terrier named Skipper who we met at the Wag and Bone Show last year. I also included a clip of a rather reactive rabbit called Monty from my television series Talking to Animals and a short piece about a touch sensitive cat that I filmed for the One Show which airs here on BBC1. Having been asked to give a presentation on TTouch at ICAWC for the past four years I face the constant challenge of giving a talk that will not only be of interest to people that have seen me speak before but will also inspire those for whom the concept of TTouch might be new, without overloading them with too much information. I hope I achieve this each year.

As I was taking my seat in the conference room at the beginning of day two a lady from Russia named Oksana came to talk to me with her interpreter. Oksana told me that after my presentation at Berlin (2007) she altered the way she worked with the animals in her shelter. After trying the TTouch techniques that I demonstrated through video clips and photographs, Oksana was able to transform a scared cat that couldn't look at anyone into a cat that became the friendliest one in the shelter. This is why I love ICAWC, and this is why I love the work that I do. I am indebted to Dog's Trust for inviting me to be a speaker each year and for including me, and therefore TTouch, in their International Training Programme, which they run three times a year here in the UK as a follow on from ICAWC.

I have included some direct quotes and information from the websites of Animals Asia and NowzadDogs in this article and hope that it has inspired you to find out more about their outstanding work. For more information, you can visit their websites at *Animals Asia Foundation and *Nowzad Dogs. Enjoy.

For a You Tube Video update please click here.

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