We humans have an innate need to have some sense of control of our futures. We believe that with focus and intention we can influence the making of our dreams to come true. We believe in Karma. We believe in the power of prayer, affirmations, goal setting, and plans of action.
The act of wishing is valuable in itself. Wishing, choosing what to wish for, helps us define what we want. When our goals are definable, they are attainable.
And, once a year, we allow our hopes and dreams to ride on the snap of the clavicle of a toasted turkey. The wishbone.
So what exactly is a wishbone? And, does a dog have one?
The wishbone is a forked bone found in birds and some other animals. The Latin term for the shape of the wishbone is furcula, which means “little fork.” It is formed by the fusion of the two clavicles.
What’s a clavicle?
The clavicle in mammals is part of the axial skeleton. It’s a doubly curved short bone that connects the arm (upper limb) to the body (trunk). Its location is directly above the first rib. Place your thumb and forefinger around the base of your neck and the bones you feel when you press downward are your clavicles. They’re also known as “collar bones”.
Medially, it articulates with the manubrium of the sternum (top of the breast-bone) at the sternoclavicular joint. At its lateral end it articulates with the acromion of the scapula (shoulder blade) at the acromioclavicular joint.
The clavicle in mammals serves several functions. It serves as a rigid support from which the scapula and free forelimb are suspended. This arrangement has the function of keeping the upper limb away from the thorax (ribcage) so that the arm has maximum range of movement. Acting as a flexible crane-like strut, the clavicle allows the scapula to move freely on the thoracic wall. Its surface features are attachment sites for muscles and ligaments of the shoulder. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clavicle
In birds, its primary function is in the strengthening of the thoracic skeleton to withstand the rigors of flight. The furcula works as a strut between a bird’s shoulders, and articulates to each of the bird’s scapulae (shoulder blades). In conjunction with the coracoid and the scapula, it forms a unique structure called the triosseal canal, which houses a strong tendon that connects the supracoracoideus muscles to the humerus. This system is responsible for lifting the wings during the recovery stroke.
Dogs don’t fly; so, they don’t have a furcula.
Most mammals have at least a vestigal remnant of a clavicle, although it is in varying degrees of development. The reason some animals have either a reduced or no clavicle is that this bone supports muscles used in climbing. If the animal doesn’t climb, it doesn’t use it, doesn’t need it, and it devolves.
Climbers like cats do have clavicles. So do squirrels, monkeys and humans. We all need the bones to support the muscles useful in climbing trees. We can also rotate our limbs (especially forelimbs) outward to help grasp tree trunks and limbs. So, animals that can climb trees have clavicles.
Dogs really can’t climb trees! Do dogs have any remnants or versions of clavicles?
Animals that run, like horses and dogs, really don’t have a need for a clavicle or the support it provides. They have a “floating shoulder.” This improves running efficiency because once the shoulder blade is no longer restrained by the clavicle, it can act almost like an extra limb segment.
The vestigial remnants of dogs clavicles are about the size and shape of buttons and function as sites for muscle attachment. Dogs are designed for speed.
Do dogs wish on wishbones too? At them, or for them, not on them. Lying at your feet under the Thanksgiving table, you can be sure that your dogs are living in the moment without the control issues that we have. They don’t envision needing a bigger crate or more toys. They are simply present; tantalized by the aromas of the feast above and willing with all their might that something -anything- will drop.
Designed, yes; functioning and motivated? As you lock eyes with your dog under the table, you think, “Yeah, at eating.”
As you grasp the turkey wishbone this Thanksgiving holiday dinner, and express your gratitude for the prosperity you are creating, and your friends and loved ones, please know that everyone at The PetMassage School includes you in their prayers. Thank you for your continued interest in, and passion for, canine massage.
What happens in Vegas. We’ve all heard (or said), “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.” Or New York, or Chicago, or Miami, or —-. Canine massage is not like that. What happens on the table (except if the dog is incontinent) doesn’t stay on the table. It stays with, and becomes, part of who the dog is.
Do you remember that time when you had that heart-to-heart conversation with someone you were getting to know. It was that evening when you began sharing confidences at dinner. You only noticed the time when the brightening sky transformed the ambiance of the room. It was a new day. You two had talked until dawn.
The conversation was all-consuming. It was alive. Organic. You listened. You shared. You were heard. You understood and were understood. Your worth was recognized. Appreciated. You realized that you had the capacity to let down your guard and connect deeply with another. To love.
You may not remember what you talked about or even who you were with; it was the experience of it that stays with you.
Canine massage is that focused. That intense. That immersive. That personal. That open. With that depth of sharing. With that candor. With that intimacy. That level of trust.
That night, building on who you thought you were, your self-awareness expanded to include new insights. These memories will become part of the fabric of your inner-garments. They will influence all your future relationships. They, and variations of them, will randomly surface for the rest of your life. Hundreds of times. This one night was an event that changed your life’s course.
This is how dogs experience massage.
Intentional touch, and its potential to do good, is the mainstay of massage. Every touch elicits a response. A response is an acknowledgement. A reaction. That reaction might be acceptance, with a lick, a look, or softening. It might be resistance, with bracing, lowered ears, or raised lip. It might be repulsion, with pulling away, turning, grasping the table surface with claws, or tensing. It might be suspicion, with quicker respiration, tightly closed mouth, wide eyes with whale eyes, the white sclera visible. It might even be disregarding, seemingly ignoring, non-acknowledgement. There is always a response.
Each response is a cycle.
1. the inhalation of the essence of the pressure into the body; and
2. an exhalation that chooses how to respond and integrate it.
Are the effects transitory? Are they limited to singular moments of transference and transition?
The touch of massage flips dogs’ internal mind and body toggle switches. It adjusts their little knobs, opens passageways, redirects traffic, and turns processes on, then off, then on again, like updating your phone. Dogs signal that they feel it. They recognize it. They own it. Each of their massages, like your special night, enables them to become expanded versions of themselves. Optimized.
Their life’s compilation of unique and meaningful experiences now includes their canine massage insights. Massage enables dogs to become enhanced versions of themselves, newly formatted, redirected, moving into their new life. It’s a new day.
What happens on the massage table doesn’t stay on the massage table. It stays with and becomes, a tiny facet of who the dog is.
Full Title: Fascia, scar tissue and holding patterns
Author: Alice Reynolds
Date of Publication: May 23, 2016
PDF: https://petmassage.com/wp-content/uploads/Fascia-scar-tissue-and-holding-patterns.pdf
Research Paper Text:
Scar tissue is the fibrous, connective tissue that forms after a strain as the body attempts to repair a torn muscle. This forms a haphazard pattern over the injury as the muscle tries to join the torn fibres together. Scar tissue is not the same as the tissue it replaces. It is tough and fibrous and not as flexible as muscle tissue. Therefore, scar tissue can reduce the muscle’s flexibility and range of motion and increase the risk of re-strain, unless the scar tissue is broken down and remodeled.
Because the new, tough, fibrous type of connective tissue lays down after a muscle is torn after a strain, the body needs to repair itself. This can take from one week to three months, depending on the grade of strain. Because of the holding process, many dogs will be diagnosed as having arthritis. The dog seems old and lame overnight. This orthopedic condition has become a blanket term for lameness in dogs.
Once one area is injured, the dog will overcompensate. Often a dog will be treated for front right lameness, but the issue is actually on the back left.
A strain with scar tissue will also result in compensatory issues. One injury can result in a host of problems and become a cyclical issue. The detection of scar tissue lies in the art of muscle isolation and palpation.
Tissue is not mindless. Tissue is full of sensations, feelings and old memories. In fact fascia has more sensory nerves than any other tissue in the body. So, as you release fascia, you are waking up the body’s sensations. Moving from the past to the present. Underneath most of our myofascial holding patterns is repressed emotional trauma. Emotional trauma is held in the soft tissue of the body.
By relaxing muscles and reducing tension, massage frees the pattern where the unconscious feeling is being held. Once the tension is gone, the unconscious mind loses its grasp and an emotion may emerge.
Holding patterns may be the result of a dog compensating for a past injury or they may be caused by past emotional trauma. If a dog experiences change, uncertainty, fear or pain, he will armor himself for protection. As part of the sympathetic nervous system, fight or flight mechanism, the muscle will brace in flexion, the breath is held, digestion stops, self-restrictive postures, such as slinking, crouching and cowering are implemented, reducing oxygenation, circulation and overall flexibility. Holding patterns affect the unconscious way muscles are held in emotional or physical situations. Therapeutic massage, such as Petmassage TM, helps to re-educate the muscle memory held in a dog’s body, allowing for more freedom of movement and new choices in which to move, behave and respond.
Jean-Pierre Hourdebaigt , L.M.T. states in his book Canine Massage A Complete Reference Manual, “This stretching and softening will help release muscle tension, contractures, trigger points, stress points and spasms, eventually breaking down scar tissue.”
Canine Massage Guild Case Study: Buddy the Sheltie
Buddy, an 8 year old Sheltie, lost his footing in an agility tunnel, flipped over and exited on his back. He was taken to a physiotherapist who recommended x-rays. No injury was found. After courses of Metacam and Loxicom had finished, he was no better.
A year later he was given a superficial palpation. Extensive scar tissue was found from strains along the muscles that run down each side of his spine and signs of a strain to one of his gluteal muscles. Three massage sessions within a three to five week period was recommended.
Buddy was running on walks and playing like a puppy after his first session. After the second session he was playing chase with the other family dogs and jumping on the sofa and bed. He now goes on long walks and happily trots along under his own steam.
This wonderful story of Buddy, his injury and scar tissue recovery, including a video taken after his first massage session, can be seen on the Canine Massage Guild website. Go to the blog Canine Massage – A case Study.
Sources
Sources
Sources
www.k9-massageguild.co.uk – Canine Massage – A Case Study Catriona Dickson
www.caninemassage.co.uk – Canine Massage Therapy Centre Worcestershire UK
Biodynamic Breath and Trauma Release Institute – Satyarthi Peloquin – Working with Emotional Trauma in Bodywork Sessions
www.massagetherapy.com – Cathy Ulrich Freedom for Feelings
www.sharonjogerst.com/caninemassage/sharonjogerst.htm – Therapeutic Bodywork and Energy Healing
Jean-Pierre Hourdebaigt, LMT – Canine Massage A Complete Reference Manual
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.
What’s that suggestion?
Moving your hands over the dog, you listen. You are open to hearing the faint stream of suggestions that will help you make sense of what you feel and the best way to respond.
Sometimes when giving a PetMassage one feels the presence of kindred spirits. These are the vibrations, or emanations, of your and the dog in your hands’ cadres of spirit guides. All around you are your systems of unseen support. They are always there, ever present, ready to offer advice. With us, at our request, we have a vast and mighty council of experts. Your protective guardian-seers are your link to the Akasha, your combined streams of your personal vectors of universal and eternal wisdom.
Vectors of Universal and Eternal Wisdom
Every once in a while, when I am writing or giving a PetMassage, I’ll glance in front of me, and see in my periphery, the vague outlines of people and creatures drifting about where I’m working. Really, I do.
The first time I became aware of them, I was just a new human massage therapist; unsure and insecure about how I ought to massage one of my first clients. I felt a strange, yet comfortable presence. I looked up from my hands at the wall in front of me. We were not the only ones in the room. Spirits, or something I couldn’t define, were everywhere. They were next to me, floating close to the ceiling, sitting cross legged on the top of the credenza. They filled the little massage room. I felt neither crowded nor closed in. They did not take up space. They were part of the space. They were the space. They overlapped each other. Combined with each other. Slipped in and out and moved through our two bodies like neutrinos.
I felt charmed and honored. I knew they were there to coach me. How amazing that I had all these profoundly wise and gifted guides!
Talkin’ about My Guides
This was my impression: Each has a soul — is, a soul. Each has — is, on an individual journey. Each has — is, a lesson, a perspective, and has a maturely developed point of view. Each has — is, a resource for knowledge, for wisdom. Each and combined with other councils, is, here as a resource to help us. These, are the seeds of our intuition, our inspiration, and our imagination.
They were on me, in me, infusing me. They were part of me. They were/are me. They were the core nugget of godliness inspiring me, offering the insight of their shared experience…our shared experience…my shared experience, guiding my hands to the right place to do the exact right things. Guiding the dog.
You and the dog in your hands are divine beings; each the focus of your unique sets of an infinite number of points of light.
The next time you are walking in a forest, look up and all around you to the leaves. How many do you see? If each leaf represents one of the spirits in your network of guides, you are only seeing a tiny sliver of what’s available and accessible to you.
The Zone
It is the zone you are in when you are in the zone. Your hands are drawn to the exact right place with the exact right technique. It is not part of the linear, deductive, rational thought process. Your brain, rather than being the decider, is the observer and participator. Bemused. Amazed. Incredulous. Not thinking, not planning, not projecting, not trying.
Simply: Doing.
Simply: Being. Being the massage, the connection, the facilitator, the solution, the healing.
The Sound of Music
Think of how you are transported by music. You are propelled and carried aloft by its chord progressions, its baseline, its rhythm, its journey into its story. You are informed by the music. You become the music. We all hear the same music. Each of us hears their own version of it. The music is played in our ears, on our receiver, is processed through our personality and experience.
It is the same with your spirit support systems. Your guides are your guides.
Fancy Insight
If you think it’s your intuition, that’s okay. If you think it’s your imagination that’s okay too. If you think you are pretending, that’s okay. These are just words. Sure, the meanings of these “soft” words are charged. In our overly and overtly rational culture, pretending, imagining, making stuff up, are all disparaged. Devalued. Marginalized. Dismissed as “fancy.” This fancy is real and it is all important.
When you have an insight (a view from within) it is your soul talking to you. You are hearing the coaching and affirmations of your inner guides. It is where your heartfelt intentionality comes from.
So in a world that cherishes the rational decisions and double blind studies, we need to pause and value our personal visions. These are a big part of PetMassage.
Prepare to be Amazed
While imagination and following your muse are important, you need to know the skills so that you know what to do when you are inspired. Have you heard the adage that “luck comes most often to those who have prepared for it?” Insight comes most frequently to those who know how and where to look for it.
Inspiration is the frosting on the cake, and, you still need the cake! You still need the training that is available in hands-on PetMassage workshops. You need the muscle memory that develops with practice. These are your foundations. Your base. Then, when your intuitive Graces tap into you, you have the skills to make the canine massage magic happen.
We are inundated with information. It’s coming from everywhere. The content is on so many subjects that it is overwhelming. It’s hard to know what’s true, what’s not; what’s relevant, and what’s inconsequential. It’s confusing and all consuming.
This morning during my meditation, I was unable to quiet my mind. Too many thoughts. Each time I reconnected to Center, bringing my attention back to breath, another crisis emerged. Australia on fire, war in the Middle East, crises in Eastern Europe, in France, in Africa, in India, in China, and in the US. My thought energy is scattered— fraught with anxiety – my resources are becoming depleted.
Mindful Whack-a-Mole is not helping anyone. It keeps my mind so busy I’m unavailable to have fresh creative interaction with my empathy and intuition.
The effectiveness of my intention depends on how focused and grounded I am.
Focus. Remember to stay grounded. I cannot pour from an empty cup. And I certainly cannot drink when the cup keeps moving.
Because of the exponential increase of all the distracting dissidence, it is now more important than ever to find a way to focus; to stay grounded, especially during my meditative times that I need to recharge and tap into my intuitive processes.
I experience a surreal meditative state while I am massaging dogs. When I am in “open state” I exist in another level; one where my receptivity to creative thought is heightened. I breathe. I move in my breath. I respond to the dog’s breath; their shifting nuanced expressions of claws, eyes, ears and coat.
But when I’m in a state of uber-stimulation, I catch myself slipping into thought. I’m responsible for the quality of life in the precious spirit in my hands. And yet, my mind is elsewhere.
Thoughts are powerful. When my psychic energy withdraws, I feel it. I am not participating. I’m filling time. Taking up space. Adrift. The dog feels it too. They turn, look, grow restless, and think about jumping off the table. It makes sense. If I’m not available, what’s the point of sticking around?
How do I restore my oneness of mind-body-spirit?
Spontaneous clearing. My hands are still on the dog and it takes but a moment, one breathing cycle, to regroup and recast the experience.
Here are two techniques that I find helpful.
- Visualize a clear path. Feel yourself moving easily along this path. Breathe and swallow. Swallowing is punctuation. It’s a conscious exclamation mark.
- Tantric yoga Cobra breathing reinforces your focus by intentionally following the cyclic motion of one contained breath. Again, you are focusing on staying on the path.
The cobra breath is a tantric breathing exercise. We use our breath to move kundalini energy. With our inhale it moves up from the root chakra at the base of the spine to the crown chakra at the crown of the head. And then with your exhale you return the energy back to the root chakra.
Cobra breath. Press your tongue on the roof of your mouth. Open your lips and breathe in through the spaces on either side of your tongue. It will make a slight hissing sound. Like a cobra.
With your inhale, pull the energy up from your tailbone and feel it flow up your spine. Feel it rush to the back of your head and around the top to the crown of your head.
Keep your tongue pressed on the roof of the mouth. As it transitions across the gap from the pineal gland in the middle of your brain to the back of your throat, swallow. Feel the pop of liquid pressure in your ears.
Slowly breathe out. Keep your tongue pressed on the roof of your mouth. Close your mouth and exhale through your nostrils. Follow the path of your energy breath as it flows down your neck, sternum, belly, and into your pubic bone. As it jumps across from your pubis to your coccyx, swallow. Notice how the shift in the pressures in your ears helps the breath dance across your peritoneum. Your breath moves up the Governing Vessel, leaps the gap to the Conception Vessel and completes the cycle, leaping back to the Governing Vessel.
With practice you will only need one breath to restore continuity. Caveat: the cobra breath does take quite a lot of practice to master.
These are two techniques that I use to stay grounded, connected, and receptive. When you find your attention wavering during meditation or canine massage, try them. Let me know if they help.
Also, let me know if you have any other ways that you use. Describe them in your Comments at https://petmassage.com/in-times-like-these-we-need-to-learn-conscious-grounding/
Other subscribers to this blog would love to learn how you overcome mindfulness distractions as well.