From welfare to wellbeing: How massage helps your dog thrive
What is welfare?
How does it differ from wellbeing?
And where does massage fit in?
These are the questions that I aim to answer in this post.
Caring for our dogs goes beyond food, water, and shelter - understanding and supporting their welfare and wellbeing allows them to thrive, not just survive.
The foundations: Five Freedoms
You’re probably familiar with the Animal Welfare Act 2006 - at least that it exists, even if you’re not sure of the details. This legislation is the main framework in the UK covering the prevention of cruelty to animals and requiring people to take positive steps to meet the needs of the animals in their care.
A key element of the Act is the Five Freedoms:
Freedom from hunger and thirst: Access to fresh water and a diet to maintain full health and vigour.
Freedom from discomfort: Appropriate environment, shelter, and comfortable resting area.
Freedom from pain, injury, or disease: Prevention through rapid diagnosis and treatment.
Freedom to express normal behaviour: Sufficient space, proper facilities, and company of their own kind.
Freedom from fear and distress: Ensuring conditions and treatment that avoid mental suffering.
In 2016, animal welfare expert David Mellor recognised that the Five Freedoms focus primarily on avoiding negative experiences, which in reality can only be minimised, not eliminated. He argued that welfare should also include the promotion of positive experiences and states.
Promoting positive experiences: Five Provisions
Mellor proposed an update with Five Provisions, designed to promote positive welfare outcomes:
Good nutrition: Minimise hunger and thirst and enable eating to be a pleasurable experience.
Good environment: Minimise discomfort and exposure while promoting thermal, physical, and other comforts.
Good health: Minimise aversive experiences and promote robustness, vigour, strength, and coordinated physical activity.
Appropriate behaviour: Minimise restrictions on behaviour and promote engagement in rewarding activities.
Positive mental experiences: Promote comfort, pleasure, interest, confidence, and a sense of control.
These provisions shift the focus from simply preventing harm to actively enhancing life quality.
Going further: The Canine Hierarchy of Needs
The Canine Hierarchy of Needs, developed by Linda Michaels and inspired by Maslow, makes these concepts specific to dogs. It covers not only physical welfare but also mental, social, and emotional needs. For owners, it clarifies how to provide these needs; for professionals, it provides a blueprint for services.
At its most basic, welfare is measurable: Does the dog have access to food and water? Are they sheltered? Are pain and injury being addressed? Yes or no. It forms the foundation for life with our dogs.
From welfare to wellbeing
So, what about wellbeing? Is it just a fuzzy part of the wellness trend, or a necessary step beyond welfare?
The Oxford English Dictionary offers two relevant definitions:
For a person or community: the state of being healthy, happy, or prosperous.
For a thing: good or safe condition; ability to flourish or prosper.
Wellbeing describes a state or condition, often harder to measure in the moment. While studies exist in humans, there are none equivalent for dogs, but their wellbeing is just as important. Dogs are recognised as sentient beings, for whom feelings matter.
Wellbeing in dogs can be categorised into four areas:
Physical wellbeing: Not just absence of pain or disease, but freedom of movement, appropriate exercise and rest, and avoidance of repeated physical stress.
Emotional wellbeing: Protection from fear, distress, or frustration; opportunities to engage in enjoyable activities.
Mental wellbeing: Opportunities and environments that stimulate and engage them mentally.
Social wellbeing: Meeting social needs, with dogs or people, at a level they find comfortable.
In short, wellbeing encompasses happiness, joy, comfort, confidence, and connection.
Massage: supporting welfare and wellbeing
So, where does massage fit within welfare and wellbeing frameworks? Let’s pull out the relevant themes from above and identify where massage can help:
Physical benefits:
Promoting good health and comfort: Massage helps identify and address soft-tissue issues such as strains, sprains, trigger points and fascial tension, reducing pain and discomfort and supporting healthy movement.
Supporting robust, well-coordinated activity: By improving gait, posture, range of motion, proprioception, and coordination, massage helps dogs move more freely and confidently in daily life.
Encouraging physical resilience and vitality: Improved circulation brings oxygen and nutrients to tissues, aiding recovery, reducing overcompensation, and supporting overall musculoskeletal health.
Fostering rest, recovery and homeostasis: By activating the parasympathetic nervous system (“rest and digest”), massage supports deeper sleep, better relaxation, and the body’s natural ability to rebalance.
Enhancing comfort during healing: Massage can help mobilise scar tissue, ease compensatory tension, and support smoother post-operative or post-injury recovery.
Mental and emotional benefits: how my approach supports your dog:
Safe and congenial environment: I create a calm, comfortable space where your dog feels secure and relaxed, promoting comfort and reducing fear or distress.
Pleasurable and species-appropriate experiences: Sessions are tailored to your dog’s preferences and needs, encouraging positive engagement and enjoyment.
Trust, consistency, and bonding: Gentle, predictable handling builds confidence and strengthens the relationship between dog and human.
Agency and choice: Your dog can decide how much to participate, direct which areas are treated, or signal if they want a break, fostering a sense of control and empowerment.
Wellbeing outcomes:
Reduced pain and improved mobility increase confidence, engagement in activities, and enjoyment of life.
Dogs can rest comfortably, explore, and interact more positively.
Hormonal benefits: massage promotes oxytocin release and overall positive states
Clinical trial evidence shows significant reductions in severity scores across five pain indicators (gait, posture, daily activity, behaviour, performance), and dogs were more likely to be rated as having a positive quality of life.
Massage supports welfare (freedom from pain, good health) and wellbeing (comfort, engagement, ability to flourish) in a holistic, evidence-informed way.
How can we tell when our dogs need support?
Living closely with our dogs can make us habituated to subtle signs of pain, especially chronic issues. We may unconsciously overcompensate, focusing on positives and overlooking discomfort.
An external perspective, from a massage therapist like myself, can help:
Identify how your dog expresses pain or wellbeing.
Monitor changes over time.
Recognise when intervention is needed and when improvements occur.
Start your own observations and data gathering: track gait, posture, activity levels, behaviour, and daily performance. My blog on spotting signs of pain can help structure your notes.
Even simple awareness can enhance your dog’s welfare and wellbeing before any treatment takes place.
When dogs are more comfortable and their pain is reduced or well managed, everything else - behaviour, movement, happiness - improves. Massage is an effective, evidence-informed way to support welfare and wellbeing throughout life, helping your dog thrive both physically and emotionally.