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October 29, 2009

Cat Massage

There are a plethora of books out there about cat massage. Some are serious and some are satirical, not for the faint of heart. But I stumbled upon a cat massage video. And while I personally find the lady in the video a little weird (she may be doing that on purpose to poke fun at herself), she does have some good massage moves.

One in particular is the chin massage. Many cats develop acne under their chins because it is just about the only place on their body that they cannot wash. My Siamese mix has this problem and gets black crusty patches on her chin (I know, eww gross!). But some chin massage and a damp paper towel helps alleviate this condition, and if I do it regularly, the skin under her chin clears up pretty quickly.

When I lived with my sister before I attended massage school, she had had the world's most aloof Himalayan. Anna was always out of reach until I began doing craniosacral therapy on my sister. The cat would come and position herself right at our sides as though she were waiting her turn. So one evening, much to her chagrin, I got my hands on her. She "whumped" right over on her side and let me work on her left hip. It turns out, years earlier, she came home with a big grease mark matting her fur and decided she wasn't going outside ever again. My sister suspects she had a run in with either a car or some farm equipment. Maybe it was just a coincidence, but it was peculiar that this cat was willing to let me work to release the the soft tissue of her hip.

But back to the video, another technique that I really like, and so does my male cat, is the chest massage. It doesn't hurt that my cat is really muscular (just like a typical Taurus), so I can really feel the meatiness of those chest muscles. I don't splay my cat's arms the way she shows in the video -- I think my cat likes to be in control of his contact with the ground -- but he sure will submit to a back rub and good combing.

tags: massage massagetherapy wellness massage therapy bodywork health

Posted by linda at October 29, 2009 9:47 PM