Leading Animal Physical Therapist to Teach in Portugal

We´ve experienced the wonders of ISBT-Bowen Therapy on humans, now a leading animal physical therapist is coming to Portugal teach this great work on dogs and horses.

Suzanne Baker (Bsc, D.C. Dip Acc.), who is based at Hong Kong’s famous Sha Tin racecourse, has accompanied veterinary teams as physical therapist for the Asia Games, South East Asia Games and the Beijing Olympics equestrian events. Her most recent successes include being trainer, coach and therapist for the Gold medal winner of last year’s Asian Eventing Championships. In 2013 she was also manual therapist for the winning horse in Hong Kong’s major Group One race.

She will be presenting Level One of ISBT’s Canine Course on July 22/23 and Level One of the Equine Course will be held on July 26/27. 

The courses are offered in three levels of two days each with a prerequisite being Module One of the human course. This, according to, Suzanne Baker, ensures that students have an understanding of the work before approaching animals. This offers protection to the animals who may otherwise be hurt by an applicator who doesn´t understand the subtleties of this amazing work. “Apart from anything else, riders who have physical problems can cause problems for horses, for instance, so it´s important that a therapist, even though they may be specialising on animals, understands how to overcome issues with riders.

Australia’s International School of Bowen Therapy (ISBT), based in the Algarve, has been conducting Bowen Therapy human courses internationally for health professionals for 15 years. Mrs Baker, formerly from the UK and one of ISBT’s first human course graduates in Hong Kong, worked with ISBT Directors Lisa Black and Col Murray to develop the techniques for animal use.

“It has been a wonderful experience,” she said. “Everyone, including me, was amazed at how simply we could create major change in often difficult circumstances.” Soon after introducing the ISBT-Bowen Therapy work on horses, people with dogs started to find their way to her. “It was really interesting to go from working on huge horses to applying the principles so successfully on dogs.

“I think we’ve come up with courses that seem to be a little different to the approach of other animal bodywork courses. It wasn’t just a matter of simply transferring the human concepts to animals. Certainly it’s possible to get reasonable results like that but we were looking for more than ‘reasonable’ results,” she said. “I think we’ve hit on the right formula.”

ISBT-Bowen Therapy is derived from the work of Australian, manual therapist Tom Bowen (1916-82) who was a legendary healer renowned for treating humans and animals.

Further information about ISBT’s animal courses can be obtained by contacting: isbt@bigpond.com

International website: www.bowen-therapy.com

or Portuguese site: www.terapiabowenportugal.com