Discovering Acupressure for Cats With Deanna S. Smith

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