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HEALTH Holistic Living Pet Massage
HEALTH Holistic Living Pet Massage
HEALTH
Pet Massage
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- Category: Holistic Living
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Rubbing, scrubbing, scratching, brushing, petting, patting your dog, cat, hamster, horse, sheep, parakeet, cockatiel, chicken, iguana, snake or turtle is a feel good time for both of you. Beyond that, much has been researched and published about therapeutic benefits interacting with a “companion animal.”
I’ve felt exhilarated swimming with a dolphin holding its dorsal fin at a Key Largo rescue center, observed the deLIGHTING of nursing home residents and staff when pets visited, and have seen physically challenged children transform astride a gentle horse.
~ Animals Are Beings ~
That term “companion animal” was used for a while by the Humane Society (HSUS) to emphasize “the integrity of animals as beings” in reaction to emerging laws defining pet animals as “sentient personal property.” So writes Katherine Grier, a Winterthur and UD professor, in PETS in America (University of N. Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 2006). J. Allen Boone wrote a book about his experiences eighty years ago pet sitting a Hollywood celebrity shepherd named London, describing how Boone’s unsuspecting heart and soul were enriched by surprising expressions of dog intelligence and compassion. Kinship with All Life is a great read about this regular guy who opens to wondrous teachings from London. This was before Lassie and Rin Tin Tin were movie stars.
Grier notes that the Humane Society has “recently bowed to popular usage and returned to ‘pet,’ ” and walks her readers through the early 1500’s application of this derivative of the French “petite” to describe “an indulged or spoiled child; any person indulged or treated as a favorite” according to the Oxford English Dictionary. “By the mid-sixteenth century, ‘pet’ included animals ‘domesticated or tamed and kept for pleasure or companionship.’ ….It morphed into a verb, meaning to fondle an animal, by the early 1600’s….”
~ Verb Emphasizes Touch ~
“These definitions are based on human perception: no people, no pets. They also call attention to proximity and the importance of touch…,” writes Grier. Remember the Disney animation of Pinocchio? Not only does clockmaker Gipetto massage Figaro kitty, but also Cleo goldfish who wriggles and splashes gleefully. (There are a couple hundred million fresh water fishies residing in American homes and offices according to Grier’s statistics from the American Veterinary Medical Association. Cats and dogs number less than 100 million each. Six out of ten U.S. households have at least one pet.)
“American pet owners now routinely describe their animals—even reptiles—as their best friends or as child/family members,” says Grier, “and feel their pets enhance daily life and their own health...with the greatest drawback being the inevitability of a pet’s death.”
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