How to Massage Your Dog's Back and Ribs

Patty Bianca: Hi! This is Patty Bianca of Natural Relief for Horse & Hound and this is my dog Whisky and we are teaching you how to massage your dog. And in this segment we are focus on the back and the ribs. This will treat the Latissimus Dorsi, the Longissimus Dorsi, the Obliques and a muscle right here in front of the thigh called the Sartorius. We will start off by once again palpating that top line starting behind the shoulder this time; one pass at moderate pressure all the way down to the tail. Now, we are going to go back up to the shoulder area and we are going to apply some percussion remembering to keep our hand nice and loose and bouncy and light, fingers loose, you dont want to beat up your dog; and we are going to stop short about a hand width from the hips. Thats the kidney area; that area is delicate and should never be percussed over. So we are going to start with light percussion -- and back, moderate percussion, and back, and heavy percussion and back. And now we are going to apply a back rub. Six passes using lots of friction, so watch the fur fly; one, two, three, four, five, six. Now we can start with some lovely little light circles at light pressure, large and light to help gently warm up this area and relax the dog and go down and up at light pressure with large circles. And then we can do medium size circles at a moderate pressure - and back, and then heavy and small circles -- and you can see Whisky loves this and that she is getting very relaxed. Now that she is nice and relaxed and the muscle is too, we can begin looking for those nasty muscle spasms by using a zigzagging motion with the tips of our fingers at a heavy pressure. And when we find one -- typically you might find between two and four on the back of the dog. We are going to apply direct pressure; light for 10, moderate for 15, heavy for 20. Going on and locating and treating any additional spasms to the end, and then when we get to the kidney area, we are going to use the sweating technique since that is nice gentle motion, you simply put your hand there and hold it for 20 seconds, its that easy. And then we finish off the area, moving up away from those kidneys again with some heavy loose percussion, up and back, stopping again at those kidneys. Now we can move on to the ribs. We will start about an inch over from the spine and palpate down in between the area in between each rib done, moving over every inch or so depending on your dogs size and look for those spasms. You never percuss by the way over the ribs; you dont need to. When you find a spasm, you treat with direct pressure, and then close that area off by sliding up about an inch and then down and through. You are going to just simply continue doing this all the way to the area in front of the thigh here, which is the flank, and that treats the ribs. This has been how to massage your dogs back and ribs, and in our next segment we are going to focus on the stomach and hip area.