Jen Moxham

My name is Jen Moxham, I am based in Renwick, Marlborough, New Zealand. The journey that my dogs have taken me on has given me a particular interest in treating sporting and working dogs as well as arthritic dogs of all ages. It has also made me passionate about taking a positive, proactive approach to managing chronic pain and providing the best support for you and your dog by working closely with your vet and other canine therapists as part of a multimodal team to help your dog live a happier, healthier life for longer.

Having been a teacher, fitness instructor and coach for many years, I am used to looking after my muscular health and wellbeing as well as the health of my clients. So, ten years ago when I started competing in the sport of canicross (cross country running with your dog), I naturally looked for ways in which to optimise the muscular health of my dogs too.

I was surprised and disappointed when I struggled to find a therapist to help maintain the musculoskeletal health of my dogs. However, it was realising that my English Pointer Storm did not have the best conformation or posture and was going to need ongoing support that started my journey into physical therapy. Since he was about 18mths old I noticed he would often get a ‘tight spot’ in his shoulders, he would never ‘drive from behind’ like a dog should do, and his gait was not fluid, I could not quite ‘put my finger on it’ as it was nothing specific. He was never lame or in obvious pain, so my vet was not concerned, but I knew that something was not right. I did not want to wait until something went wrong, I wanted to prevent that happening.

After a lot of research, I enrolled in a Mctimoney course to learn how to treat my own dogs, and Storm did show some signs of improvement. Although I still felt that there was a lot more I could do to help him and help prevent future complications. This led me to take the next step to train as a canine Myotherapist with Galen Myotherapy so that I could truly help to improve and enrich not only Storm’s life, but the lives of other dogs as well as my own.