October 9th

It is the final day of ICAWC and I am becoming hoarse.  This always happens here.  I gave my presentation before lunch and then spent the entire lunch break, the coffee break, and the end of the conference asking questions and giving advice as best I could to the delegates.  My presentation was on changing habitual behaviour with TTouch and the video clips and series of photographs went down very well.  As Tony and I were sitting in the conference room waiting for the second day to commence a lady from Russia came over to talk to me with an interpreter.  Her name is Oksana and she told me that after seeing my presentation in Berlin (2007) she went back to her shelter and tried the techniques on her animals.  My talk changed the way she worked with the animals in her care and she was able to turn a nervous, scared cat who couldn’t look at anyone at all, into the friendliest cat in the rescue centre.  This is why I love ICAWC and this is why I love the work that I do.  I finished my presentation talking about Oksana’s successes and said that whilst TTouch alone couldn’t change the world, it could change the world for an animal in distress. 

Every speaker gives their time for free at ICAWC and 38 countries were represented by delegates who are working in often extremely difficult situations with very limited funds.  Here, they can meet with like minded people, have access to advice and help from the top people in their fields and be inspired by a variety of tips on fundraising, PR, shelter building, training and behaviour etc to help the animals that they care for live a happier and healthier life.   We are going out to supper tonight with the Dogs Trust team and some of the other speakers and will be flying home tomorrow morning.  Another brilliant ICAWC is nearly over.

This entry was posted on 20. October 2009 at 18:09 and is filed under Sarah Fisher. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.