PetMassageTM has published several books and DVDs that you can use to learn to massage your dog. Thousands of people have found them easy to use and enjoyable to read/watch. Students of our last Foundation workshop all agreed that the hands-on training that they were getting in the workshop with Jonathan was what they needed, to be able to put their home study training into practice. They were able to understand how, why and when their massage was influencing the dog. They learned how to apply the techniques described in the books and DVDs. They learned how to use their breathing and bodies efficiently to stay calm, relaxed, vital, and strong; how to manage the environmental distractions and inner voices that could disrupt flow and presence; how much pressure to use; and, how to put it all together for the dogs. In the workshops you get the guidance and individual instruction to begin to create an effective canine massage practice or to massage your dogs at home. With the workshop experience you learn to combine PetMassageTM body mechanics, body awareness, and essential breathing techniques, meditation and applications of martial arts, anatomy and physiology, canine behavior, and applicable aspects of Swedish massage.
Now the commercial: We invite you to visit, browse, and shop our newly designed, and easy to navigate website, www.petmassage.com Here, you can learn about PetMassageTM, its history, mission and plans, its books, DVDs, training workshops, home study courses and accessories, its YouTube videos and galleries, its articles, all of the blogs and all of Anastasia’s Arfirmations.
Thanks to Word Press, we are able to update it weekly. And we now run random specials on products and workshops.
Many dogs have irritated or swollen eyes in the spring because of all the heavy pollen all around them.
Be sure to include eye work in your PetMassageTM. Tear production and drainage is vital for health of the outer eye.
Palpating the upper contours of the bony orbits around each eye, you’ll notice a tiny indentation. This is the fossa, or hole through which the tear duct flows. Locate it on the upper border of your eye orbit under your eyebrow. So, now you know where it is located, what it feels like, and how much pressure you were able to exert to stay comfortable while you palpated it. Press a little harder and notice a mild discomfort. Depending on the dog’s tolerance, that is your range.
The goals in palpating around the eyes are to stimulate the tissues, and to balance/enhance tear production and drainage.
Palpate these as you press and release around the orbit of the eye. Hold each point for a full slow inhale/exhale cycle, beginning with light thumb caress, allowing your thumb pad –not the nail- to sink into the tissues. Notice for temperature variations, puffiness, or any reactions (such as pulling away) that might suggest discomfort with mild pressure. The strongest pressure you would use is less than a half a pound. To be comfortable and confident applying the right amount of pressure, practice on a food scale. Practice with light caress and develop control as you move to 8 ounces.
“Tear glands within the orbit, as well as the superficial tear gland of the nictitating membrane (third eyelid) produce the collective preocular or precorneal tear film. This film consists of 3 layers: outer lipid (from the Meibomian glands), middle aqueous layer (from lacrimal and third eyelid glands), and deep layer (mucus) from the goblet cells within the conjunctiva.
“The canine tear drainage system consists of 2 lacrimal puncta, 2 canaliculi, the lacrimal sac (within the bony lacrimal fossa), and the long and often tortuous lacrimal duct (to empty tears within the forward nasal cavity).”
Thank you: http://www.merckmanuals.com/vet/eye_and_ear/ophthalmology/nasolacrimal_and_lacrimal_apparatus.html
From the perspective of canine massage and bodywork, rehabilitation is not only appropriate, it is necessary in all aspects and phases of a healthy dog’s life. “All aspects” include the holy trinity of new age wellness: everything included in the dog’s body, mind and spirit.
Probably the most apparent value of canine rehabilitation massage would be for the physical body. If your dog has any injury that affects mobility, canine massage helps his body restore to greater ROM, range of motion. Canine massage moves fluids. It increases movement and balance to cardiovascular and interstitial fluids. Canine massage increases joint flexibility. The increased blood flow acts to change internal fluid volumes and pressures. The warmth canine massage generates reduces viscosity of synovial fluid in the joints, so that the hyaline cartilage covering the ends of bones can be better lubricated to slide more easily against each other.
Canine massage increases body flexibility. All of the organs and muscles in the body are encased, sheathed, in bands and bags of a tissue called fascia. Fascia is a kind of connective tissue that contains and connects large areas of the body so that they are able to coordinate their efforts for movement and functioning. The fascia affects everything from wagging the tail to constricting the pupils.
If your dog is recovering from an injury, or a surgery, which by its definition, is a type of assault to the body, your dog’s movement will be restricted. The restriction may be self imposed, based on the levels of pain and discomfort. And/or, it may be externally imposed with crate confinement, bandaging, casting, E-collars, medications and pet owner confusion. In all of these cases, movement has been reduced.
Non- or infrequent toe touching, limping, gait deviation, digestive imbalances, reactions to medications, excessive drinking, skin and coat damage, and behavioral issues based on temporary stressors, can all be addressed – and modified — through canine rehab massage.
What happens to the body when movement is reduced? Muscles that are not used shrink and lose tone. They atrophy. Immediately. Notice what happens when you hold your breath and pay attention to your hands. Within 15 seconds of oxygen deprivation, you can notice changes to the tissues and nerves in your hands. Your fingers begin to tingle and the beds of your fingernails turn pale. In just this short time your hands changed visibly before your eyes. They became noticeably weaker and unsteady. Canine rehabilitation massage is a method to restore the nutrients in your blood to areas of the body that get starved just like your fingers did.
Canine rehabilitation massage involves touch. Experiencing touch, the dog spontaneously releases endorphins, the “feel good” hormones, into the bloodstream. Feeling good is a self perpetuating tonic. When you feel good, you want to move. When you move, you feel good. Give the “feel good and move more” incentive to a dog that has been hitherto biased toward movement restriction, and presto change-o. You’ve got a dog redirected toward the fast track to wellness. That is, rehabilitation.
Canine rehabilitation massage restores the natural home, or habitat, the condition of the body as it was originally designed to function, back to a more healthy state. Think of it as “greening” the body. Even if your dog has already morphed into a couch potato, and is beginning to sprout little roots into the seat cushions, canine massage can encourage the fluids within the tissues, in whatever condition they are in, to move. The Canine rehabilitation massage routine for manipulating limbs gently and slowly increases circulation and respiration, which in turn, increases muscle tone, joint flexibility, body awareness, and mood. So, even with a dog that is paralyzed, canine rehabilitation massage will begin its cascading effect of revitalizing the entire body.
That’s if your dog has an injury. Other factors require massage, as well. What if your dog is “un pio rotundo,” Italiano for “a little obese.” I like the descriptive proffered by Ben and Jerry: “Chunky Monkey.” While it is not classified an injury per se, the extra girth is a continuous insult on the body; burdening its ability to move and function. The extra bulk is a strain on the heart. It is a strain on the joints. It is a strain on the lungs. It is a strain on the eyes, the windows to the soul. So, by extension, canine chunkiness is an insult to the soul, which in some say is a direct connection to and a hologram of, the Universal Spirit. Did I just go there? Oh, yes, I did! This is how much value there is with canine rehabilitation massage.
Where can you find canine rehabilitation massage? Every vet school in the country is now including canine rehabilitation in its curricula. And every canine rehabilitation protocol includes some sort of tissue manipulation, massage. So, theoretically, you ought to be able to access massage therapy for your dog in every vet clinic that has a recent graduate. However, there are still some veterinarians who have not yet seen the value of massage as a separate and distinct therapeutic modality. These are the vets who have not yet experienced the benefits of therapeutic massage for themselves.
There are different types of massage training and philosophical approach. They span the range from believing that the body is a machine that produces movement in a very scientific and predictable way based on levers, pulleys, strains and counter strains. At the opposite end of the spectrum Energy practitioners promote that everything is energy (Chi, Qi, Healing touch, Reiki, flower essence, aroma, sound, light, emotional, polarity, and planetary), moving through invisible, intuitively detectable patterns that move through, over, and around the body. There are many variations and combinations of approaches between these two that include diseases and inherited potentialities, the effects of emotional stressors the dogs are processing, the environment (air and water quality), nutrition, breed, pack order and territoriality, birth order, training, empathy and karma.
One thing is clear. We can discount the simplified theory that the body is only a self contained, independent set of machines made up of levers, pulleys, and switches. This approach, based on a limited version of the Swedish Medical Massage model, is the modality that has apparently been adopted by the instructors of many veterinary rehabilitation programs. This was the modality that I was taught when I was learning human massage therapy. This approach treats massage as a component of physical therapy, with scientific detachment and easily observable and measurable results. The affected areas are addressed; while the rest of the body is ignored. It is the easiest to teach, because it does not address the creative, intuitively developed skills necessary to work with another “soul on soul” as opposed to “one on one.”
In the larger picture of massage, its true nature, the entire body is interconnected. Every part is dependent on the successful function of every other part. The tail doesn’t wag when a tooth is in pain. Massage, canine massage, is not a science; albeit it uses similar vocabulary. Massage, canine massage, is an art.
The application of massage is an art. The interpretation of massage is an art. The development of massage is an art. Knowing when to begin, when to continue, and when to stop: an art. It is only through the interpretations of the subtle nuances of movement discovered through intuitively attuned palpation, that the wider, opened-ended possibilities for change and healing are accessed. That is true massage. Anything less is rubbing.
Everyone who is trained in canine PetMassageTM practices massage as an art form. Whether it is for relaxation, general well being, or rehabilitation the approach is the same. The dog’s participation in the massage event is part of the process. The only way that we can know if we are giving dogs the physical and emotional support they need is by observing how the dog is reacting to variations of PetMassageTM techniques. True to the original intent of the word, every PetMassageTM is rehabilitative. Every PetMassageTM functions to aid the body to return to its original, natural state of grace and ergonomic use of energy.
If you would like to find someone who is PetMassageTM trained, or, you would like to learn to PetMassageTM your dog, contact 800-779-1001 or visit us at www.petmassage.com.
- Fleas can pull 160,000 times their own weight, which is the same as you pulling 2,679 double-deckerbuses.
- A flea can jump 30,000 times without stopping.
- Fleas don’t have ears and are virtually blind.
- The average flea is between2mm and 3mm long and weighs about 0.03g.
- The world’s biggest flea is the beaver flea, which is about 11mm.
- Fleas reverse direction with every jump.
- Flea larvae don’t like the light so they move away from it, deep into carpets, cracks in flooring or any nook or cranny.
- When a flea jumps, it accelerates 50 times faster than a space shuttle.
- Fleas can lay up to 1,500 eggs in their lifetime.
- Flea brides and grooms (dressed, but dead) were popular collector’s items in the 1920s.
- Flea pupae can live for up to one year in homes.
- Fleas can jump over 150 times their own size (approximately 30cm high) – which is like you jumping the length of a football field.
- A flea’s life cycle can be as short as 14 days or up to 12 months.
- 95% of flea eggs, larvae and pupae live in beds, rugs, carpets and sofas – not on your pet.
- Just one flea can become 1,000 on your pet and in your home in only 21 days.
- Flea circuses originated in England in the 16thcentury.
- One of Britain’s oldest games can trace its origins to the flea. In approximately 15 different European languages, the word ‘tiddlywinks’ translates as ‘the game of the flea’.
- In nearly all species, the female is larger than the male.
- The collective name for a group of fleas is a swarm.
- Sand fleas are only active at dawn and dusk.
- Fleas can be frozen for up to a year and then revive themselves.
(Health24, March 2011) Source: http://frontlineplus.co.za/goodies/flea_facts.asp
The research part of PetMassageTM is always seeking ways to verify results. If you and your dogs would like to participate in a little study to ascertain whether these formulae are statistically effective, send us an email to the same address with your request to join the study.
I had an idea. Not in the sense that it was a thought that I had in the past. More in the sexual connotation, as in, I was consumed, moved, enveloped, excited, engaged, and changed, by the experience of thinking something I’d not thought of before.
I experienced being in a confluence of a number of variables. Right time, right place, right everything, so that this could happen. It is what the mystics might describe as an epiphany, a religious experience of knowing and realizing the awesomeness of the ultimate presence of everything.
Imagine that you are surrounded by a huge globe with billions of randomly spaced tiny holes through which shards of light shine into your darkness. Kind of like being under a starry sky on a clear night, only the stars are wherever you look as you turn, all around you; above, in front, behind, to your sides, and even below as you look down. Each of these tiny holes is a potential point of interest. Each holds a vast storehouse of information about its topic, ramifications, variations, effects, and opportunities.
When you are open, and I don’t know how that happens, and you are on one of these vectors of intellectual energy, everything within that trajectory spontaneously enters your awareness at once. I was once fortunate to somehow lock onto the perfect coordinates of focusing and openness. It is a third eye experience – moving right into the Pineal Gland. Enormous amounts of details combine to provide a comprehensive vision and understanding of what you are experiencing. Expansive, yet specific. In its clarity, it is bright and colorful. It is vivid in detail. Awesome, in its depth. Unfathomable, in its breadth.
And what you are experiencing is one tiny vector; one sparkle seen through your lenses, from your perspective and integrating with your world view of history. This enormous receptacle of knowledge and potential is sometimes described as the Akashic Record. Or, the Akash. It is the “space with” and “experience of” and “connection to” and “access to” everything that has ever been or ever will be thought, said, imagined, discovered, seen, heard, smelled, and experienced. Pure potential availability. It is all there. It has always been there. It will always be there.
This particular tiny vector of intellectual/spiritual interest is unique to you. It is filtered, processed and available only through your personal globe. And when it is accepted and acted upon, it becomes the source for you to create real value in your life and the lives of others. It is a huge truth. It became a roadmap for my personal journey’s potential.
What was this ideated experience? (Like that word? You can use it, too.) PetMassage. On July 11, 1997, during an interview for NBC TV, I was asked to demonstrate canine massage with an old Golden Retriever. As I supported the dog’s big heavy head in my hands my heart felt his energetic body shift. As his eyelids drifted closed and his long wet tongue lolled out of his mouth, I was suddenly aware of that I was open and manifesting a life-changing vision: I am sharing the knowledge, experience and personal perspective of animal massage that I have developed. This massage form is enhancing the lives of the world’s population of animals. Specifically, dogs. I saw large dogs, small dogs, dogs of every breed, combination of breeds, dogs of every coat, color and texture. Young dogs, old dogs, healthy dogs and sick dogs. Couch potatoes and athletic dogs. And I saw their owners. Male, female, young, old; in every country and speaking every language, working on their own dogs at home, and creating successful businesses massaging other people’s dogs. I saw books, videos, classes and schools. I saw PetMassageTM integrated with dog care at home and as a therapy in veterinary clinics. I knew how – I knew that, PetMassageTM benefits the world’s dogs and the world’s people.
This was the vision that sparked PetMassageTM. The magnitude of this realization has developed its own momentum and given us the strength of purpose, when questioned, to persevere. PetMassageTM creates, has created, and has always been creating value for those who are reminded that it is an accessible potential.
So when I write that I had an idea, it is more like the idea had me. I invite you to remember that you too, are part of this “accessible potential.” Begin your part of your greater vision now. When you decide to access your PetMassageTM training, we are here to help you.
We know what can happen to the muscles if you do not warm them before running, jumping, biking, or other extreme exercises like golfing or backgammon. A great way to warm the major muscle groups that your dog will be working is walking. Of course, PetMassageTM is excellent too and will warm up the deeper muscles, tendons, ligaments, and connective tissue. PetMassageTM works all those little knots and areas of tightness. If PetMassageTM is not convenient, walk for a minimum of 10 minutes.
While I was PetMassaging Maxwell, a golden, my hands paused over at the transition between the last thoracic vertebrae and the first Lumbar vertebrae. There is a point, an acupressure point, that is significant here. It has a strong connection to the GV20: called, Bai Hui that expresses in humans on the crown of the head. We are entering the “Meeting in Grand Unity.”
Debra Kaatz, author of Characters of Wisdom: Taoist Tales of the Acupuncture Points writes, “Everything is a part of the whole and this is the meeting place of that unity. It is the point of balance between the posterior and anterior, the yin and the yang, and the light and the dark. It is where everything can be directed from a place of wholeness and the one. Here is where all the rivers and seas can be directed and guided from the original source of all life. The grand unity for the Chinese was the number one hundred called Bai and drawn as the number one over the sun. Hui is a meeting of words brought together and is drawn as words under a roof. It means to meet, assemble, collect, co-operate, to understand and to be in the habit of. This point is also one of the points of the sea of bone marrow giving an inner strength of vitality to the system.”
Max developed a severe anxiety when his housemate of 13 years passed. His grief presented as excessive panting and perpetual restlessness. As my hands lingered over this point, I felt the sensation of a cloud dispersing in the back of my brain. Max looked at me, looked away, yawned, and rested his chin on his wrist. I replaced him on the floor and observed. For the first time in several weeks (his owner stated) he was resting and breathing with his mouth closed. When he heard someone at the door, he rose and, with tail wagging slowly, strode over to it to investigate.
One hundred pathways indeed!
Shapes you recognize in clouds may give you insight into the sorts of things you are processing. Not sure what the galloping horse with a duck’s head means.