Equine & Canine Massage

Equine Sports Massage

Benefits of Equine Sports Massage

• Stimulates circulation
• Enhances tone and increases range of motion
• Promotes healing
• Creates balance: Teaching body to work as one, instead of as a single limb.
• Can help with tying up.
• Encourages horse's willingness to perform.
• Better communication between horse and rider.

Your horse will let you know he has sore or injured muscles by:

• Bucking
• Refusing to pick up the correct lead
• Head tossing and or bobbing
• Difficulty with lateral movements
• Girthing problems / Cold Backed
• Attitude changes
• “Off” for no apparent reason

All horses are athletes that can benefit from Equine Sports Massage Therapy

How do I know if my horse is benefiting?

You should see and/or feel immediate improvement in your horse's flexibility and movement. Performance and overall disposition should also improve.

Information to know :

• Sixty percent of the horse's body weight is muscle.
• Muscles respond to stress or injury by hyper-contraction. This results in unnecessary stress on an opposing muscle or joint.
• Muscle soreness can be the result of injury, cooling down too fast, structural or systemic imbalance, overstretching or overuse/misuse.
• Muscles, damaged or not, do not show up on X-Rays.
• Muscle problems are cumulative in nature. If one set of muscles is tight, the horse, like us, will have to compensate by tensing up and employing other muscles.
• Like us, horses anticipate pain. Their way of going becomes short and choppy, resulting in an uneven gait

Canine Sports Massage and Therapeutic Massage

Benefits of Canine Massage

• Relieves pain and discomfort.
• Creates flexibility.
• Enhances repertory function.
• Increases muscle health, giving range of motion.
• Increases lymph flow.

Eases Aching Muscles

Just as humans feel a lot of relief to their aching muscles after a good massage, the same happens to your dog. Extremely beneficial for athletic dogs; even for pet dogs who workout of a regular basis as massages strengthen your dog’s muscles.

Improves Blood and Lymph Circulation

It stimulates blood circulation which then increases the amount of oxygen that reaches tissue and flushes out toxins and waste.

• Gives puppies a sense of where their paws are.
• Helps the body utilize food, water, exercise and sleep.
• Gives acceptance to touch.

Pre and post operational massage can help calm the animal, enhancing circulation and lymph flow, which helps bring your animal in and out of anesthesia.

"I think you really helped to relax Blade. When I finally got to ride him after scratches cleared he was much better about his head placement."