Dog Massage for an Arthritic Pet
Daily massages can also be beneficial for your dog in maintaining joint flexibility, which is the point of exercise, and may not only help you relieve your pet’s discomfort, but helps you maintain that special bond of quality time with “man’s best friend.”
Massage therapy has a therapeutic use as well, for it improves muscle and joint flexibility, increases blood supply to joints, and helps prevent or breakdown scar tissue formation. Simply gently leading a joint through its full range of motion – using slow, passive movements -- can help it maintain or regain normal range of motion such as during the recovery from an operation. This type of massage will stimulate blood circulation to the muscles and joints and once muscle strength and usage of the leg returns, it is no longer necessary. It canbe done at home, unlike chiropractic treatment for dogs or canine acupuncture which requires you to see a professional.
To learn the proper way to massage your dog, you can study with a massage therapist trained in animal anatomy or your veterinarian may instruct you in how you can practice massage therapy on your pet at home. Two books are particular useful for learning these techniques: Dr. Michael Fox's The Healing Touch as well as Love, Miracles and Animal Healing.
Dogs and cats use stretching to relax and keep in shape but as animals get older and stiff, they can't stretch and move around as easily. Therapeutic massage can help relieve some of their pain and stiffness and help them regain some of their mobility, so let’s focus on the therapeutic massage you can use for a dog who suffers from arthritis or dysplasia.
First, you must recognize that there are times when you do not want to massage your dog. This includes:
- Just after they have eaten
- When they are sick, with fever, or have an infection
- Immediately following strenuous exercise to allow their heart rate to normalize to a resting level
- When a dog is pregnant because it’s possible to unintentionally induce premature labor
Before you start massaging your dog according to any specific acupressure routine, you should first settle in a nice relaxing place where you and your dog can remain calm and undisturbed. Don’t massage your dog if they still want to jump around and play because you’ll have little success in administering a successful therapeutic session. Wait till they’ve calmed down before you begin a massage session.
Now sit or lay down with your dog and start your massage of him or her by gently brushing your hands over their head and running down their back to their tail. When you follow this direction of massage -- running from the dog’s head, neck and back to the rear -- you are actually following the natural lines of the animal’s acupuncture meridians.
The most important thing to remember when massaging your dog is to watch their reactions. If they growl, resist or try to nip you because you touch a spot that’s painful or sore, listen to them and stop. You’ve just discovered a “hot spot,” so avoid that area. A dog will let you know in no uncertain terms whether they are enjoying your touch or not, and where they don’t like it. Don’t press into that area or location.
Pets also seem to pick up on your energies when you massage them, so a few more words of advice are not to massage your dog when you are irritable or too hyper as that will, in turn, tend to make the animal irritable. Yu can communicate your own moods through your touch, so only approach your dog when you are sure it will be a pleasurable experience for both of you.
When a dog doesn’t like you touching a certain area, inspect the area to determine whether or not there is a problem there. Also, if you are petting your dog and you feel excess heat over an area of their back, it may be an early sign of a "slipped disc" or arthritis that needs to be checked by your veterinarian.
When you find that your dog actually pushes or rubs into your touch instead of moves away from you, or “bathes in ecstasy” when you massage them, that is an area you may want to massage deeper or for a longer period of time.
Here’s how to massage that area, and the acupressure points around affected limbs, to provide a deeper therapeutic benefit.
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