Monday 1 February 2016

The hidden treasures of a Kong...

When I talk to people about what I do, they often assume that the dogs fall asleep straight away.
Ha ha!  If only it were that simple ;)

Now don’t get me wrong, those who don’t fall sound sleep certainly don’t hate it, and the whole point of low stress handling and going at the pace of the dog is that they learn to get used to the touch in their own time.  But, in terms of whether they all go to sleep, well not all dogs are equal as we already know and whilst some absolutely do go to sleep – truly asleep - you do also get the other extreme. 

This is where Bailey comes in….

I have been seeing Bailey regularly for about 10 months now.  He is a beautiful 15 year old English Cocker Spaniel with a history of compressed discs in his lumbar spine.  We started off with weekly 60min sessions, and as his condition improved we tailed it off so now he has 30 min maintenance sessions every 3 weeks.

When I first started working with Bailey he just couldn’t settle.  The first 3 sessions involved a lot of trust building, as is often the case, but he still just didn’t really seem to settle.  Every time I touched him he got super excited and wriggled around, which whilst highly amusing was no good for trying to work his muscles!  It wasn’t that the massage was hurting him, it is just the way he reacts to touch.  It wasn’t until we struck on the idea of using a Kong that Bailey really started to benefit from massage.

So now, for 30mins every 3 weeks Bailey enjoys a Kong filled with biscuits and mashed sweet potato which focuses his mind while I massage him and work on all his problem areas.  He looks round at me every once in a while as if to say “oh, it’s you…I’d forgotten” and then gets back to his Kong.  Check out the link to the video to see how this works. 



Afterwards he falls sound asleep. 

I was explaining this to someone the other day and they asked me whether he still benefited from massage if that was the case.  I likened it to our human massages –if you’re anything like me sometimes you just stay wide awake and alert.  Your muscles though still benefit from the work.  So physiologically during the session Bailey’s body is getting the benefit of massage, and then both psychologically and physiologically when he sleeps afterwards he is allowing his body to repair and rejuvenate itself.

Bailey is rather unique…whilst a number of the dogs I work on do sometimes need some sort of distraction (like a gentle tickle under the chin from their owner every now and then, or the odd treat), this kind of reaction is not something I encounter with all my clients!


Thank you Bailey, for being you J

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