Renee Lane’s living room had been transformed into a spa. Candles twinkled on the coffee table; lavender oil scented the air; lilting guitar music played on the stereo. Grace, Lane’s two-year-old caramel-coloured toy poodle, leaped onto the sofa and, in response to Lane’s cooing invitation (“want to lay down for Mama?”), got into position for her evening massage. Lane took a deep breath and began making long stroking motions down the length of Grace’s back with her palms. With her thumbs, she kneaded the tissue around the dog’s shoulders, and then began working her way towards the muscles in the dog’s legs. By the time the massage session was done, Grace had entered a state of canine bliss, eyelids drooping, tongue lolling. “Grace absolutely loves it — she just turns into a puddle,” said Lane, 43, a public relations and business development consultant. “She helps reduce my stress, so why shouldn’t I reciprocate?”

That is a question that a number of dog owners — and even some cat owners — have been asking themselves, buoyed by a belief that pet massage confers the same benefits as human massage: increased circulation, improved digestion, strengthened immunity, stress relief, comfort at the end of life and muscle relaxation after a hard day (even if it was spent at the dog park).

Some pet owners scoff at this idea. “What’s wrong with regular old petting?” they ask. And many veterinarians say that evidence of its benefits is flimsy. Nonetheless, pet massage workshops have flourished in recent years at pet stores, dog day-care centres, veterinary clinics, animal hospitals, massage schools and holistic institutes.

“People realise more and more that what’s good for me, including massage, is probably good for my animal,” said Jean-Pierre Hourdebaigt, an animal massage therapist and teacher, whose book Canine Massage: A Complete Reference Manual is considered the standard text.

The origins of pet massage can be traced to equine massage, a treatment popularised in the ’70s and ’80s by Jack Meagher, a massage therapist who worked with the United States equestrian team. By the early ’90s, a handful of people experienced in human or equine massage, or both, had begun adapting Meagher’s technique for use on dogs and cats.

Sometimes, veterinarians suggest the practice. Nanci Sloan Cummings, a mortgage loan officer, said she was urged by her veterinarian to try massage for her arthritic collie, Baxter. Although in his sprightlier days the dog could trek several miles, by last year he was able to walk only a couple of blocks. Cummings took a massage workshop at a dog day-care centre. Nearly every evening since then, she has performed the routine she learnt: kneading, squeezing, stroking and tapping Baxter.

But there are many veterinarians who believe that pet massage offers little beyond the attention and affection. They note that few studies of it have been conducted, and that claims of its benefits are usually extrapolated from research on humans. At best, they say, massage fortifies the bond between human and animal in the same way that a good belly scratch does, and at worst, it may aggravate a serious medical condition or prevent owners from seeking veterinary help.

Narda Robinson, a veterinarian at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, has a more benign view. Robinson, who established a canine medical massage course at the university in 2008, believes that massage, properly administered, can help dogs recover from illness, injuries and stress. And while massage classes for dog owners are largely unregulated and of varying quality, she said, they can be helpful as long as they are “based on actual science, rather than lost in mysterious energies”.

For many pet owners, though, the goal is not therapeutic — it’s just to make their dogs feel good. One recent Sunday afternoon, several people showed up for a canine massage class at My Dog’s Place, a training school, along with their charges: a miniature dachshund, a Rhodesian ridgeback, a cocker spaniel and a few others. The dogs sniffed their helloes, then settled on blankets on the floor, and teacher Suzin Webb began her instruction. For two hours, the students worked the muscles along their dogs’ spines, stretched their limbs, rolled the dogs’ skin between their fingers and gently tugged their tails. By the end of the class, none of the dogs seemed particularly eager to move.