Your dogs’ initial consultation and 1st treatment will last approximately 1 hour 30 minutes and will include the following:

Consultation – This is where I will gather information about your dog including:

• Medical history, information provided by your dogs vet on their completed vet consent form

• Diet, supplements or medications

• Daily activities

• Pre-existing conditions

• Indicators of pain you have noticed (The 5 Principles of Pain).

• Your dog’s personality, behaviour and how they like to be handled

• Your expectations and how you are hoping massage therapy will help your dog

Gait Analysis – I will watch your dogs’ movement in a walk, trot and canter to assess for any problems in their gait.

Postural Analysis – I will look at how your dog stands, sits or gets up from lying to assess for any irregularities or patterns of tension.

Initial Palpation/ muscular health check – I will do a hands on assessment of all the major muscles to identify any areas of concern. I do this by using a principle called the 4T’s (Tenderness, Texture, Temperature and Tone). This allows me to identify injuries, scar tissue, trigger points, myofascial pain, hypertonicity (too much resting tone in the muscle) and muscular atrophy (muscle wasting), including any areas of pain that your dog is presenting with.

Full Body Massage – I use all the information gathered and complete a full body massage in addition to focusing on areas previously identified. Every dog is different and each session is tailored to the individual dog to meet their specific needs. I will assess your dog throughout checking how they are responding to treatment both physically and mentally. This part of the session will last approximately 50 minutes.

Feedback – I will explain what I have found showing where there are any areas of issue and how you can assist your dogs recovery. You will be given aftercare instructions to take away which includes my phone number should you have any questions or concerns.

Further Treatments – My aim is to be able to treat a muscular injury in 1-3 sessions, with the best results occurring in three 50 minute treatments over 3 weeks. I will then submit a report back to your dogs’ vet to continue patient care and report my findings.

Every dog is different and some may require more sessions. In the case of no improvement after 3 treatments where I would expect there to be, I will refer back to your vet for further investigation.