Profitable living as a animal massage therapist?

[a wolf at the door (42)]

Hello all!

I was curious to know how many of you have a practice strictly for animals. Or do you work on animals part time? How do you find the best way to find your clients? Is it difficult? Is there a market for it? What is usually the fee range (hrs/$$) of what you charge?

Animal massage interests me quite alot. I start massage school in 9 days but whose counting? WOOHOO!

THANK YOU......... t006

 

[Social Butterfly]

Profitable living as a animal massage therapist?

I don't personally know any therapists that work exclusively on animals...most do work with human bodies, as well. I think if you can get in with a PT who works on animals, or get into a Vet clinic, it might be very possible to make a good living providing animal massage.

I believe there is a need, therefore a market. I gained a lot of experience and clients through volunteering at local rescues.

Is it difficult? I say yes because marketing myself is not my gift. It's one thing to be compassionate & excellent with animals, possessing natural communication (observation of body language) skills, as well as having the intuitive & technical knowledge and manual skill to back it all up...then you need to take all of that to the animal's owner because they are the ones paying for the treatment. Then, there's the whole lack of professional regulation and Vet law to consider. Of course, if it's your passion, you can make it happen.

Fees vary, but are comparable to human massage rates.

Good luck with school!

 

[Hot Revolver]

Profitable living as a animal massage therapist?

I think you'd want to make sure that you don't need to tie yourself to any one clinic. If you're tied down, then you can only treat the patients of that particular clinic. I'm looking into this because I want to work with children, but I don't know how well I'd do with working on children, alone. First of all, parents need to see the benefits of it. Second, I don't know how massage clinics would feel about me working with competing clinics. Also, I don't want to do all my own accounting and such, so my options are limited. I'm hoping that working with a hospital will solve that, but will the hospital see the benefit of children's massage? I'm guessing you'd be running into similar issues.

 

[Sylar- Goodbye for now.]

Profitable living as a animal massage therapist?

Thank you for your kind feedback. You are right. It does all come down to marketing and who you present yourself to. Working on animals will be a sideline from my human massage. Thanks again for the input!

 

[brownboy]

Profitable living as a animal massage therapist?

Thank you for your kind feedback. You are right. It does all come down to marketing and who you present yourself to. Working on animals will be a sideline from my human massage. Thanks again for the input!

You bet! Please keep us posted!

 

[thegubmint]

Profitable living as a animal massage therapist?

While I was in school, I would practice on my cat....now I work on both of our cats regularly. I have a client who I see weekly who has an older dog diagnosed with arthritis and asked me if massage would benefit her. I told her that the only experience I have had with animals is by working on my cats and that we could try it. Now I have both of them coming in for weekly sessions
Next to our children, we spend a lot of money on our pets. There is definitely a need and I would say that you can market yourself to the various vet clinics in your area and see what happens

 

[Destrucity]

Profitable living as a animal massage therapist?

@Ankur: Sounds like a plan. Thanks for the encouragement!