How SENSE Helps

Wyatt enjoying his session

Does your animal friend…

• Show signs of pain or stiffness?
• Have difficulty getting up?
• Appear anxious or unhappy?
• Seem to have lost vitality?
• Suffer from hip dysplasia or arthritis?
• Act uncooperative or aggressive?

SENSE Method has helped dogs, cats, and other animals:

• Improve movement and attitude
• Reduce stiffness and aches and pains
• Lessen the effects of hip dysplasia and arthritis
• Lessen discomfort after trauma or surgery
• Replace anxiety with confidence
• Minimize problems associated with aging
• Promote long-term soundness and vitality
• Enhance communication between animal and human
• Support end of life transitions
• Deepen the human-animal bond
• Improve body awareness to make training and sports easy and fun!

Creating a connection that heals you both

Buddy and Mary

Unconscious physical and emotional habits contribute to disease, disharmony and injury. The SENSE Method uses non-habitual touch, movement and the power of connection to help animals and their people replace limiting movements and behaviors with healthy, empowering ones.

So don’t assume that difficulty and deterioration are inevitable – learn how you can improve your health and vitality and that of your animal companions!

Based on my four-year training in the Feldenkrais Method® for people, as well as a lifetime of studying and working with animals, I developed the SENSE Method as a way to improve animals’ well-being and movement. Through the gentle, specific touch and exercises of the SENSE Method, animals can learn to move in safer, more comfortable ways which lessen musculoskeletal stress. Injured areas get a chance to heal and future problems can be prevented.

SENSE Method has benefited animals of all ages and levels of fitness, from improving the performance of an Olympic-level equine athlete to helping an older dog with hip dysplasia walk comfortably. SENSE Method can enhance healing, improve athletic ability, encourage cooperation, increase relaxation, and deepen the human/animal bond.

How the SENSE Method Works

Hero learning how to walk easier

The SENSE Method improves animals’ well-being and athletic performance by addressing the causes of physical and mental tensions.

While numerous animals suffering from hip dysplasia, spinal problems, ligament and joint injuries, and sore, stiff muscles have been helped by SENSE Method, it is not veterinary therapy. It is an educational approach. This easy-to-learn approach uses gentle touch and exercises which assist the animal in learning how to move in safer, more comfortable ways which lessen musculoskeletal stress. Injured areas get a chance to heal, and degenerative problems can be prevented.

With this newly found comfort, the animal’s anxiety is greatly reduced, aggression often diminishes, and cooperation is enhanced. People that utilize SENSE Method report a greatly increased bond with their animal friends.

A key concept of SENSE Method is respecting and working with the intelligence of the body. This is the innate wisdom that endeavors to keep creatures safe and healthy. This intelligence is what makes animals adopt postures or movement patterns to accommodate a weakness or to guard an injured or sore area. The nervous system can be thought of as the intelligence center, for it is the nervous system which controls the functioning of muscles, which move the bones.

Tucker and Mary

Limping is an example of an intelligent response to pain. While limping is appropriate immediately following an injury, many times the limp does not totally disappear after the injured area has healed. While it may not be noticeable to the eye, the animal may still be tensing certain muscles and putting more weight on one side of his body. We must remember that the limp helped the animal cope with his earlier predicament and now he has a deep-rooted attachment to that pattern. Until convinced otherwise, his nervous system wants to maintain it. Since over time this asymmetrical use of himself can lead to damage to muscles and joints, I need to convince the animal’s nervous system that there are better options.

I touch and move the animal in gentle, novel ways, being careful to cause neither anxiety nor pain. Since these movements are experienced as pleasurable and safe, the animal’s nervous system lets go of defenses around the formerly injured areas and new movement patterns replace the old, harmful ones.

It is always interesting to see the behavioral changes that often occur in animals that have been helped by SENSE Method. Those that were aggressive become calmer, fearful animals gain confidence, and antisocial ones become cooperative and friendly. These results illustrate that when the functioning of the nervous system improves, quality of life can improve immeasurably.

Go to our articles page to read more about the SENSE Method has helped improve the well-being of our animal friends.