As part of my schooling, I have to complete 40 massages before I can graduate and some of them have to be done while interning at a local business. I've set up two internships and plan to continue to offer massages there after graduation.
The first is Country Dogs Dog Daycare in Bolton and the other is at Preppy Pets in Fitchburg. I'm really excited about both places!
On Friday I met with Courtney at Preppy Pets to set up the details of the internship and to massage her dog Olivia. Olivia absolutely LOVED her massage. She melted in my hands. In fact, she was so cute that Courtney got her cell phone out to take pictures of the puddle that her dog had become.
I was introduced to Preppy Pets because of my volunteer work with the Fitchburg Animal Shelter. Preppy Pets donates supplies and grooming to the shelter and a lot of the alumni go to daycare there. So after my meeting I headed on up to the shelter to meet Molly, the director's Mastiff/St. Bernard mix who is suspected to have hip dysplasia and she was eager to see if massage can help her feel more comfortable.
Molly(pictured above)was in a new place and her mom wasn't in the room with us and Molly wanted to be with her mom. I'm sure my Lexi and I would have the same separation anxiety going on too! It took Molly awhile to settle down and enjoy her massage. I definitely noticed that there was a difference in her hips both in muscle tone and how she responded to massage. I found a few knots and worked on those and next time we'll make sure that Mom stays for the session to help keep her calm and so I can show her some things to do at home.
I was also eager to massage one of the shelter dogs, but first we wanted to get their photo sessions out of the way. I've been volunteering to take their petfinder.com photos since the shelter started a year ago. As I looked at the dogs, I was debating if I wanted to work on one of the pitties who had been there for awhile or one of the newcomers.
I got to meet Pogo, who is absolutely sweet and adorable.
Then I got to photograph a little pittie puppy who had nice loose fascia being so young.
But when I met Rex, I knew I wanted to work with him. You see, I love pathetic dogs and he was so unsure of what we were doing during the photo shoot that I wanted to give him a really positive experience.
Supposedly he had a young owner who didn't have time for him and he hadn't had the opportunity to be exposed to a lot of things, so the last week has been a bit overwhelming for him. Luckily he has some other little friends at the shelter and is discovering that he likes to play!
I started massaging him slowly with long smooth strokes that resemble petting. I like to think of effleurage as "petting with a purpose". It's something that they're used to, but they can tell that it's different too. Once he started to relax, I palpated for knots and found that that poor little guy was just full of them. I worked on as many as I could and I hope that I get to work on him again before he goes to a foster home.
