The Professional Podcast Network
10462 Katie Benjamin-10 14 24-Dog Spa-Matt
Welcome to the Professional Podcast Network, where brilliance meets business, elevate your brand, and supercharge your revenue with inspiring insights and innovation. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, and today I'm talking with Katie Benjamin, who is the owner of the Water Dog Spa in Seattle, Washington. How are you doing today, Katie? I'm good, thanks, Matt, good to talk to you. So tell me more about yourself and what it is you do. I'm a canine hydro therapist, I have a pool, I actually put it in my backyard, but I will pool studio, and so I do rehabilitation for animals that are coming out of surgery or an injury or an illness. And how long have you been doing this for? I've been doing this since 2016. And what inspired you to go into this line of work? I had this sweetest dog, who's a black fly up named Rocco, who had cushioned disease, which is an adrenal malfunction and causing some loose his ability to do the exact way. And so I brought him to the vet, and we had that absolutely terrible conversation that you have when it's time for the end of life, and we made the plan, and I wanted you to give him two awesome weeks before he had to leave us. And I brought him swimming, and lo and behold, he started kicking off four legs, which he hadn't been able to move, and he was flat on a compliment, and bellowing a compliment, and all those things. So I saw him swimming, and I saw how good he felt, and though he still couldn't hold weight, I could see that there was still something there. So you can only swim in the Pacific Northwest for about an hour and a half during the entire year. So once it got cold, I had to bring him in, and so I found them high throughout these studios around, so they were all really far away, or they just weren't my vibe. So I learned what I could for them, I got jobs in spaces that would have me, and then I went to massage school, to animal massage school, and I've been doing it ever since. I see. So why don't you tell me a little bit more about the services that you provide there? Yeah, so we started our first initial evaluation, and that's kind of an in-breathe, we meet the dog, we meet the family, we go to their health history. I'm not a vet, so I can't diagnose anything, I can't prescribe anything. But I do have an extensive background in pediology, and that's a lot of my training. So you know, I'll do a gait analysis on the dog, and then a full body palpation. See if there's anything that comes out that says, you know, where they turn around and say like, "Hey, they're not hurt," or they'll touch that, or if anything feels anatomically wrong to me, you know, we're looking for signs of inflammation or teeth or something. And then after that, I just listened to our heart real quick, listened to their lungs, make sure that I've talked with the family, that there's nothing won't be going on that they didn't tell me about. And then I whisk the dog into the pool, bring them over to the side, let them kind of come to terms with it. I always joke that this is when they're clutching their pro-homes, saying like, "What's the weirdest they have done to do?" And then once they're ready to bring them into the center and start moving, and I have a way to hold them up, so I can watch how their body is moving in the water, because you can see, you know, we might limp, but if we were swimming, we wouldn't limp. So then I kind of compare and contrast, like, okay, well the range of motion is there, but the muscle just didn't filter. And then we balance between swimming, and then on our brakes, we'll swim anywhere from like one minute to three minutes, and then we'll take a break and we'll do a massage. And we'll massage an area of the body, then we'll swim again. So it's a lot of recovery of, like I said, injuries and illnesses, or rehabbing in me that's had a TPLO surgery on it. Or some dogs just have to come because they've been smack monsters for too long, and they need to lose some weight, and their humans don't want to get fat shamed with the bed anymore. So, for anyone out there who wants to learn more about this, what's the best way to get in touch with you? You know, check out my website, waterdogspot.com, and if you, you can also follow me on Instagram. There's always pictures of puppies on there, and that's waterdogspot. You can, yeah, just check this out and send me a message. I'm happy to answer your questions. I would love more people back into this industry. Like, there's so many dogs that need, need to be helped. I think all of us are kind of feeling, feeling that grind, that there isn't medical care for everybody. Everybody got dogs and we should all have an event and stuff, so we're trying to help out dogs who want to move, you know, it's the best job in the world. All right. Well, thanks again for talking with us, Katie. Yeah, you bet. You're welcome. And take care. Thanks. You too. Have a great day. To the rest of our listeners, stay right there, because we'll be right back with more after this break. Welcome to the Professional Podcast Network, where brilliance meets business, elevate your brand, and supercharge your revenue with inspiring insights and innovation. (upbeat music)