PetMassage for Kids™ School Program

Letter to Educators

Thank you for your interest in teaching PetMassage for Kids™ at your school, home, camp or place of business. We have created curricula for two separate programs, grades 2-7. One is for a five day summer program and another is a ten week after-school program.

PetMassage for Kids™ is based on tested and validated skills and teaching methods developed over twelve years of teaching more than two-hundred (200) week-long professional level canine massage workshops for adults. Our teaching guides are enjoyable and easy to follow. Kids will love the classes, too!

As educators and adults, we understand the value of touch and how therapeutic a massage can be. We also understand the powerful connections children have with their dogs at home. This course teaches the values of compassionate touch using their stuffed dogs as the vehicle. Working with stuffed dogs, rather than live ones, also makes for a very safe, fun, and liability-free environment.

PetMassage for Kids™ has exercises for children to become consciously aware of their senses, to observe and respect another's space, to become aware of how their actions can affect others, and, of course, how to optimize the power of gentleness and touch sensitivity.

The PetMassage for Kids™ program teaches children the basic hands-on skills of canine massage and principles of dog handling safety. They learn the basic handling, touching, holding, stroking, and other PetMassage techniques with their stuffed dogs. Confidence in their new abilities grows while important psycho-social skills develop naturally, including

• body language awareness
• control
• patience
• respect
• and empathy

Kids discover that their body language, facial expressions and even their thoughts can have powerful effects on others, especially their sensitive dogs. Learning and practicing PetMassage™ is more that just petting dogs!

PetMassage for Kids™ texts and curricula:

The texts for both curricula include the three-part set (buy the complete set) Each student needs to have his/her own set.

1. The book, "Dogs Kids PetMassage" 8 ½ x 11, 128 pages is fully illustrated with photographs of children PetMassaging stuffed animals and live dogs, for ages 7-12 (buy separately)
2. The DVD, "PetMassage: A Kid's Guide to Massaging Dogs," 60 minutes, kids have a PetMassage for dogs workshop. For ages 4-12, original songs and Bonus DVD Menu reinforce lessons (buy separately)
3. The audio CD, "PetMassage Doggie Songs for Kids" has eleven original songs, which support such message as no grabbing, respecting space and how to approach a dog, for ages 4-12 (buy separately)

The curricula:

The PetMassage for Kids five-day, 3 hour per day summer school curriculum (buy now)

and/or The PetMassage for Kids ten week one hour per week after school curriculum (buy now)

The introductory price for the PetMassage for Kids™ curriculum is only $50 for one program, and $75 for both. It does not include the three-part set of study materials that retails for $47.85.

"Official" graduation PetMassage patches are available for $5 each. "Official" certificates from the PetMassage Training and Research Institute are priced at $5 a piece, as well.

Each student should be encouraged to purchase his/her PetMassage™ collection and to continue to learn at home.

With your bulk order discount, the three-part sets can be resold to your students for additional school or business revenue. Our discount rates are:

You may also want to purchase our book Creating and Marketing your Animal Business. In it you'll discover marketing ideas to promote PetMassage for Kids™. This is available only through our school and our website.

PetMassage for Kids™ is a wonderful program that can benefit the children and dogs in your community in so many ways. We welcome the opportunity to help you promote PetMassage for Kids™ in your area.

About PetMassage™

Everyone who shares their life with a dog knows the joy and pleasure of touching, petting, scratching and especially massaging their pet. PetMassage™ is a system of canine massage that incorporates many of the techniques used by professional massage therapists, animal trainers and handlers, and animal behaviorists. Learn PetMassage™ to make the petting and massage you already do more effective, more powerful, more of a health enhancing experience for your dog.

PetMassage™ provides dog owners, from 8-80, a way to participate in their dogs wellness care. The PetMassage for KidsTM program is endorsed by the Girl Scouts of America® as a skills merit patch and we have curricula for educators to teach children grades 2-7 how to massage dogs using a stuffed dog. PetMassage™ books and DVDs are staples in our PetMassage™ professional training workshops.

Competition dogs, such as agility and flyball athletes have been getting canine massage for years to keep in tip-top condition. Marathon runners know the value of warm up and cool-down massage for themselves. They now consider the needs of their canine running partners, making sure that their dogs also stretch and warm up their muscles with massage.

More and more veterinarians are including massage as part of rehabilitation programs. PetMassage™ is not "alternative" therapy. PetMassage™ is "complementary," and integrates readily with all forms of canine healthcare.

There is an exciting and fulfilling future for those who learn to practice canine massage professionally. The more we learn about dogs, the more we recognize the obvious need for canine massage.

Benefits of PetMassage™

• Enhances bonding in newly adopted dogs
• Increases circulation
• Increases flexibility
• Develops and maintains muscles tone
• Helps relieve the effects of stiffness and joint discomfort
• Helps dogs rehabilitate after surgeries and other traumas
• Helps dogs and their owners with end of life care, "Transitions"

PetMassage™, Training and Research Institute is in a 5200 sq ft facility, easily accessible to express-ways, metro parks, hotels and some of the best shopping in northwest Ohio. The 1000 sq ft classroom, equipped with PetMassage™ tables and conference area is large enough to easily accommodate our students and their dogs during workshops. There is also a retail area and a dog health and fitness center with a large indoor heated pool and an indoor labyrinth. At PetMassage™ in Toledo, OH, we teach workshops, provide individual teaching sessions in dry massage and conduct research on the effects of dry and PetMassage™ WaterWork (massaging dogs in water).

The Founders of PetMassage™

Jonathan Rudinger, RN LMT has been instrumental in developing the field of canine massage for people at home and at the professional level since the mid-1990's. His books and videos include Effective PetMassage for Dogs, PetMassage Energy Work With Dogs, A Kids Guide to Massaging Dogs DVD, Dogs, Kids, PetMassage, book, PetMassage™ Doggie Songs for Kids, CD, Creating & Marketing Your Animal Massage Business, and TransitionS PetMassage Energy Work for the Aging & Dying Dog. Jonathan has facilitated over 200 week-long canine PetMassage workshops at the PetMassage™, Ltd. in Toledo OH and created home-study courses that have provided instruction for thousands of dog owners. Recognized as an authority on massage for dogs he has been interviewed on National Public Radio, all the major radio and television networks and cable networks. He has been featured in Whole Dog Journal, Dog Fancy Magazine, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, Massage Magazine, Animal Wellness Magazine, Massage Today and Massage Therapy Journal. PetMassage™ as a specific practice is included in the new TouchAbilities Massage Therapy textbook. Jonathan is also the founder and president of the International Association of Animal Massage and Bodywork.

Anastasia Rudinger is a Certified Massage Therapist, graduating from the Chicago School of Massage Therapy in 1988. She is also an Infant Massage Instructor who enjoys encouraging new parents to bond with and better understand their babies. By teaching parents Infant Massage techniques, they learn to lovingly and effectively massage their babies.

Jonathan and Anastasia Rudinger live and teach in Toledo, OH with their two dogs: boxer, Lola Ginabrigida, and standard poodle, Jacques-a-Poodle-Doo.

About PetMassage for Kids™ After school, summer school and camp programs

In the PetMassage for Kids™ program, children learn basic hands-on skills of canine massage and principles of dog handling safety. Children learn the basic handling, touching, holding, stroking, and other PetMassage techniques. Confidence grows while their attention moves to their breathing patterns and their heightened awareness of their dog's possible responses to their presence and touch. Kids learn that their body language, facial expressions and even their thoughts can have powerful influences on others, especially their dogs. Everyone soon sees that PetMassage is a lot more that just rubbing and petting dogs!

Children develop important psycho-social skills while learning and practicing PetMassage™

1. body language awareness
2. control
3. patience
4. and empathy

In the PetMassage for Kids program, children learn basic hands-on skills of canine massage and principles of dog handling safety. Children learn the basic handling, touching, holding, stroking, and other PetMassage techniques. Confidence grows while their attention moves to their breathing patterns and their heightened awareness of their dog's possible responses to their presence and touch. Kids learn that their body language, facial expressions and even their thoughts can have powerful influences on others, especially their dogs. Everyone soon sees that PetMassage is a lot more than just rubbing and petting dogs!

In the PetMassage for Kids courses, for safety, confidence building and liability reasons, children learn and practice only with their stuffed dogs. They can practice with their real dogs when they are at home.

PetMassage for Kids is the only course that encourages children to appreciate and apply PetMassage™ skills to bond with and help their dogs stay fit and healthy. The three texts are the book, "Dogs Kids PetMassage," the DVD, "PetMassage™: A Kid's Guide to Massaging Dogs," and the audio CD, "PetMassage Doggie Songs for Kids."

"Dogs Kids PetMassage" is an enjoyable read for the children, teachers, and the parents who learn with them. The 128-page, "Dogs Kids PetMassage" book, has abundant photographs on every page and easy to follow instructions. In it, two children have a private lesson at the PetMassage™ Training and Research Institute, with Mister Jonathan (Rudinger). "Dogs Kids PetMassage" shows two children, step-by-step, how to provide PetMassage to stuffed and also real dogs. "Dogs Kids PetMassage" is the perfect complement to the 55 minute DVD, "PetMassage™: A Kid's Guide to Massaging Dogs," in which several children take a PetMassage™ workshop to learn a simple version of a full body canine massage.

In the DVD, the workshop lessons are reinforced when two of the children schedule a private review session and it concludes with a lively round table discussion with dog puppets. The DVD Bonus menu items include History of PetMassage, Study Guides of the PetMassage Form, Benefits of PetMassage, Contraindications, and more.

The "PetMassage: Doggie Songs for Kids," audio CD presents many original songs, each of which can be used for discussion, learning, and group expression. These are the titles: Thank You for My PetMassage, On My Face, Where Did I Put My Tail?, Head Withers Stifles Toes, Wag Your Tail, What Do You Do To Do What You Want To Do?, Walk to Me Curvy-Swervy, Respected, Sometimes, and, No Grabbing.

The fourth part is the skills merit patch. A separate program was developed by PetMassage working with the Girl Scouts of America® Maumee Valley Council, that allows Girl Scouts to earn the PetMassage skills merit patch. Your students are eligible to earn the Official PetMassage patch too, when they complete Ten-week after-school or Five-day summer "PetMassage for Kids" courses.

Make "PetMassage for Kids" the foundation for your fun and educational home school, after school, summer school, and camp activities. Consider the possibilities!

Learning outcomes

"Official" PetMassage patches and certificates of completion for graduates are available for an additional fee.

The PetMassage for Kids™ school program instructors can access instructional support via email, interactive website and an 800 number.

Materials Required for Teachers and Children

Teachers and Children Materials for PetMassage for Kids™

Teacher Materials:

• Dogs Kids PetMassage, Book
• PetMassage: A Kids Guide to Massaging Dogs, DVD
• PetMassage Doggie songs for Kids, CD
• Curriculum
• Stuffed dog
• Computer
• Paper: enough for drawings of dogs and self portraits, clues for game of charades
• Crayons/markers
• TV/DVD player
• CD player
• Student copies of "Parts of the Dogs Body: Contours and Bony Landmarks"

Child Materials

• Each needs to bring a stuffed dog from home and Dogs Kids PetMassage, Book
• Recommended for continuing home practice:
  PetMassage: A Kids Guide to Massaging Dogs, DVD and PetMassage Doggie Songs for Kids, CD

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