Canine massage is therapy for dogs’ minds and spirits.

The more I practice canine massage, the more I appreciate that there is so much more that I am influencing than the anatomical nuts and bolts, fluid dynamics, and interdependent physiological systems.

Touch, no matter how structured and clinical, also therapeutically influences the functioning of mind and spirit too.

Dysfunction is always a result of the body’s response to stress and stressors. The stress may be in the form of a disease, a break or a tear. It could also be from the memories associated with long-healed physical injuries and forgotten and buried psychological ones.

This softer, energy-based attribute fascinates me. I write about it so often because this is what winds my clock.

Mind and spirit responses cannot be measured or predicted as they might be in double-blind studies. They are subjective. They can only be felt and/or interpreted from observation. They are unique to the time and place and situation for this dog.

What are the felt and/or subjective observations? Owners describe how their dog’s quality of life is better when they get massage compared to when they don’t. Their dogs are happier. Their dogs must feel better, because they are more alert, more present, more interactive, more affectionate.

Every massage transcends dogs’ physical channels and pathways that we can see and feel. Our experience -the dogs and mine-happens in and through mysterious intra-, epi-, ultra-, and supra-dimensional pathways. This is what students learn in PetMassage workshops.