IAAMB: Where do you get your inspiration to massage dogs?
Rudinger: We know that each massage session is different; just as each massage recipient is different and specially unique. There is something in the animal's body or mind, or spirit that connects with us to let us know what to do and how to provide for his or her uniquely specific needs.

There is so much around us that we are not aware of. There are scents we don't smell. Flavors we don't taste. There are sights we don't see; sounds we don't hear; textures that we don't feel. There are signals we don't interpret.

IAAMB: How do you approach massage of animals?
Rudinger: We need to learn to enhance our internal awareness', which will allow us to be more aware of the needs, the responses and the integration of our therapy (healing). Your awareness, itself, will enhance the effectiveness of your work.

If, in massage, we were to work with animals, depending only on our five outward definable and measurable senses, our work would be severely limited. Of course, we start with what we can understand. We can observe the animal's gait, the symmetry of the body and the tonality of muscle tissue. We can feel knots in muscles; taut ligaments, and cool and warm areas on the coat or hide. We can hear the animals breathing and note whether it is labored or not. We can see hair patterns. We can see the sheen or dullness of the coat. We can feel and see the patches of raw skin and coat of partially healed wounds. We can smell the aromas emanating from dogs' ears, mouths, and other orifices. We can feel and hear the heartrending crunchiness when we pick up or flex old arthritic joints. We can feel the textures of all sorts of lumps, bumps, scars, layers of fat or bones protruding on emaciated bodies.

We take all these things into account when we begin our sessions with animals; but then, something, some other level of awareness takes over to guide our hands and our attention to specific parts of the animal's body. This super-awareness guides us to know where and how to touch, which directions to press the tissue, and when to stop our compressions to allow the tissue to unwind.

IAAMB: How did you know you wanted to teach animal massage?
Rudinger: I'd like to share a true story with you. It was an experience, though it lasted only a microsecond that profoundly changed the direction and motivation in my life. It made me aware that there is so much more available to us, if our awareness is open and ready.

In 1997, I was invited by a television station to give a demonstration of equine massage. As the shoot was ending, my interviewer brought an old yellow farm dog over to me, saying to the camera, "Dogs get stiff necks, too. Let's see what Jonathan can do."

Up until this time, I had never intentionally massaged a dog before! My focus had been on horses and humans. I cradled the dog's head in my hands and watched his tongue loll out to one side of his mouth. It was delightful! As his eyes rolled back into his head in bliss, I experienced a split-second, immediate, extraordinary and profound insight. An actual epiphany! I had the knowledge and the experience to produce courses that would enable pet owners, pet-care professionals and other massage therapists to connect with and help their dogs using the massage form I had developed. In that moment I saw the dogs, the students, the schools, the research, the covers of the books and videos (DVD or VHS) and much, much more. I knew that I had witnessed a burst of intuitive awareness that had the potential to create positive supportive waves for dogs and their guardians.

Following that split second plan that I witnessed, since then, we have created many videos (DVD or VHS), books, workshops, home study courses, health & fitness center for dogs and a research institute. We have gained local as well as international recognition and now draw students from all over the globe to our workshops.

IAAMB: Where does insight come from?
Rudinger: The word "insight" is the clue. It is "looking inward," at an extraordinary moment of excitement, expectancy and, well trepidation.. Fortunately, the openness and the insight occurred simultaneously.

I was able to observe a tiny crack in my normal sensory armoring that encases all of my daily experiences. Now I know that there is another entire universe of awareness and understanding that we cannot even acknowledge unless we experience it.

IAAMB: What else is out there that we cannot understand, or even know to look for?
Rudinger: Roger Carris, in his book, A Dog Is Listening, suggests that dogs may have as many as twenty senses. Along with enhanced versions of our paltry five, they use their abilities to track the sun, track magnetic and special arrangements, barometric pressures, sound waves, air currents, and vibrations in and above the earth.

We can interpret only what our senses are capable and willing to experience. We see only in a small segment of the full spectrum of light that continues to slower wavelengths and faster wavelengths. We hear only a small portion of the vibrations flowing around us. It is safe to say we are aware of only a thin slice of all of what is really going on around us. There are creatures miles deep below the surface of the ocean that have neither endo- nor exoskeletons that would be crushed by the extreme pressures. The only way they can be observed is by shining oblique light across them. Likewise, there are other creatures, high up in the stratospheres that, again, have neither endo- nor exoskeletons. These are not only unobservable; they are practically incomprehensible.

Occasionally, we get "lucky" and get a glimpse into aspects of our unknown worlds. Then, we realize how big and rich our lives can be. Our expanded world has much more depth, much more potential, more clarity, more wonder.
Each time you connect with a dog you have a portal into his/her world. You can use it as a channel to lead you to discover yours.

IAAMB: What else is available to us, if we are open?
Rudinger: Our internal awareness is the sum total of all your temporal conscious and subconscious memories, and our cultural memories. These are encoded in our genes. Our cultural memories determine our hair and eye color, our body type, our unique potentials for personalities, talents and even the methodologies of our reasoning processes. Our dogs' memories are not the same as ours. They include their memories from birth. They include physical and behavioral factors that were engineered into their breeds. Dog's cultural memories extend way back before breed differentiation.

There is a theory that each of us, not limiting this to "man," but including all life forms, is a microcosm of the macrocosm of the universe. In other words, each of is a hologram of the whole; each of us has all of the parts, wisdom and memory of the universe. The trick is to become aware of the memories. In-sight.

We also know that our memories are not all confined within our heads. We have memories of specific emotional events
held within our muscle tissue. Each of our muscles and tendons can be moved to its more relaxed or comfortable position.
And, if each cell can differentiate between comfortable and uncomfortable, then it stands that each has a memory of how either of these positions feel. Each of our cells is constantly doing trillions of jobs, from reproduction, to energy production, waste management, to maintenance of pH and hydration.

The spaces in the cells that make these decisions are called cellular memory. The memories are communicated to the rest of the body through muscle contraction or relaxation and … vibrations. It's the dog's presentation of his or her immediate version of "I am." Your dog's vibrations connect with your vibrations when the two of you come together. Your combining of your energies creates the unique relationship that you both experience.

Insight happens when both our inner-awareness' start vibrating together. Our memories connect to guide our hands to exactly the right places at exactly the right times, with the right pressures and intention. We find that the most effective sessions for clients are when we are so totally "in the zone," that our intellectual-take control parts of our brains, gets out of the line of communication to allow the wisdom of our hearts to lead our hands.

IAAMB: How can we use this awareness in our practice?
Rudinger: We can relate to the spark of life in the eyes, and level and movements of the tail and the rest of the body language. We sense the flow of energy and vitality in veins and meridians, and respond to the subtle resilient unwinding of the fascia.

Yes, opening our hearts opens our eyes. When our hearts and spirits joyously and playfully interact with the minds, hearts and spirits of our dogs, we become, on levels we can only begin to comprehend, more aware and responsive to their needs.

Jonathan Rudinger teaches his PetMassage_™ form in home study courses and workshops held at the PetMassage_™ Headquarters in Toledo Ohio.