While certified equine massage therapists can help horses even in cases where veterinary medicine has failed, unqualified practitioners can lower the general perception of the trade. Hear a certified therapist's view on the subject in this video on equine kinesiology.
Hello, my name is Jennifer Oliver, and I'm an equine massage therapist and the question is how are my services perceived and what challenges do I face in the equine industry? There are certainly a lot of doubters out there about equine massage and when I tell them what I do they're kind of like, what? I can't believe that's even an existence but over the past 20 years it's really come a long way. You know, more and more people are using it. More and more people are getting amazing results and more and more people are referring equine massage therapists. Well I have been an equine massage therapist for almost four years now and I definitely get a lot out of it because to really see the difference it makes in these equine athletes is a really rewarding job. You know, I've helped horses with problems that, you know, they've gone to vets for and you know, given them medicine for and nothing seems to work and then I go and after a couple of sessions the horse is as good as new and that's a really rewarding feeling on top of just the every day watching them enjoy me massage them every day. So, you know, it's a really rewarding job and you meet so many great people, supportive people in the industry and it's really nice. Some of the challenges that I face in the equine industry are obviously nonbelievers but also massage therapists that aren't certified massage therapists going out and working. These people have a tendency to not really know what they're doing and kind of put a bad name on the industry. But overall I feel very warmly recepted, and once you get your name in the equine industry you know, you can only go up, so.