Complimentary medicine, including acupressure for cats, works side by side with the work of veterinarians. This was one of the first things Deanna S. Smith, the author of ‘Animal Acupressure – The Cat’ told us when Mum met up with her, just before the BlogPaws® conference in Phoenix, Az., in 2016.
Deanna is an online friend from Twitter, and we could not believe that she lives not far from Chandler where BlogPaws was hosting the conference in June – what an opportunity. We wish more people could have met her!
Demonstrating Acupressure
When Deanna offered to demonstrate a few basic acupressure techniques at the BlogPaws conference, this was an opportunity Mum could not turn down, so we invited her for a visit us at the Wild Horse Pass resort. As we also needed a demonstration model for the acupressure techniques, blogging colleague Bunny, and her dog Carma Poodale, offered to be our model – thank you Carma!
Acupressure For Cats, An Illustrated Book
The book is use friendly, not technical and you will find it worth your time and money.
It is subtitled, ‘an acupressure guide for common ailments of the cat’ and is divided into clear sections for study by ordinary pet loving people. A foreword explains how Deanna used acupressure to benefit one particular cat, a brief history of acupressure and its place in Chinese Traditional Medicine, and then goes on to give a quick overview of the book and its contents.
The clearly written chapters include an explanation of what animal acupressure is; provides clear anatomical charts, and also explanations of pressure points you use for each ailment. There are explanations of ‘meridians’, and their importance, and easy to read lists of symptoms for common ailments.
Acupressure for Cats an Overview
This book is inspiring, friendly, and well written. Nothing is too technical, and everything can be absorbed with quiet study. This is a book for pet parents at home not a practising expert, so symptoms are simply written to allow you to decide what kind of issue you are facing and how to use your acupressure skills.
The intention is to benefit animals by the use of acupressure through clear explanations and helpful charts. You can see, and locate, the acupoints for many specific ailments on the charts including asthma/breathing disorders, constipation, swelling, and muscle weakness. We love the clear information on how and where to apply acupressure to an animal. We are learning about different points as we read more and quickly realised that this will take a period of sustained study to do properly, but, that it’s worth the effort if this will benefit our family.
An Important Thing Learned from Acupressure for Cats
One important thing that struck us forcefully was Deanna’s advice ‘learn it now, not when you need to know it’. In other words – learn while you are not under stress and have leisure time. You can become familiar with your cat (or other animal) and make the best use of the techniques available when you need them most.
- Deanna is available on Facebook here and happy to answer questions about the acupressure books, and her comprehensive website, well worth a visit, is here. There are also some great stories aboout how acupressure has helped animals here.
We include our Amazon Smile Fundraising link to the full series of volumes here.
Phoebe Kitten
Animal Acupressure Book Reviewer
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Somebody told Mommy about this book at BlogPaws! She learned Shiatsu massage for humans and wants to check this out for us kitties.
Sounds like a great guide, good idea to learn acupressure just in case you need it in the future.
Love & Biscuits,
Dogs Luv Us and We Luv Them
Learn it now, not when you need it. VERY GOOD ADVICE, indeed.
Purrs,
Seville
I have never heard about acupuncture for cats before! You see, you learn something new every day! Thank you for this informative post!! Love, Valerie
That is so cool! Our humans have had accupressure before, but we never knew it was available for cat ailments!
Thank you for sharing, really interesting post and great to know
I’ve had human acupressure but I didn’t know it was also a thing for pets!
I have wanted to try accu-pressure for my own back pain. Ruby also might benefit from it.
Great information. Mom Paula has considered acupuncture for herself with her pain, but hasn’t tried it yet.
That’s really most interesting but it might scare me a bit!
Ernie has had accupuncture and benefited from it. I’m sure accupressure could be just as beneficial for him…as well as my other cats. I will check out Deanna’s book. ~Island Cat Mom
Always a great idea to learn something before you actually need to know it. I’ve not had acupressure myself but would be interested in learning more about it.
Didn’t love acupuncture but I am a big believer in pressure points for humans so I am sure would work well for animals too. How cool that you got a demo. The book sounds interesting
Sounds like great info to know!
This book sounds great! I like natural therapies. Sometimes they are just what you (or your kitty) need to feel better. 🙂
Wonderful! We have an acupressure practitioner in my community who is kind enough to donate her services in my local animal shelter. Watching her work with the cats is simply amazing. You can just see them relax under her touch.
Jean from Welcome to the Menagerie
Whoa! Is she working on Carma Poodale?? I think we need to read the chapter on asthma cos just last night TW was reminding her to look up alternative treatments.
Hi Phoebe, I’ve just started to read this book, and do think it is going to be fun to learn from and great resource for any future ails. I just hope peep can remember where all the points are…. mind you there are handy diagrams so as long as peep remembers which end bites I think we’ll get through it! purrs ERin
That could be a handy thing to know.
Sounds interesting! Will check that book out 🙂
Purrs xx
Athena and Marie
This sounds REALLY good to know!