Today we’d like to introduce you to Suzanne Golden.
Suzanne, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I first became interested in a more holistic way of taking care of my dogs around 2000 when I had a standard poodle who bloated. Bloat is a painful and deadly condition with a rapid onset. Luckily for him, I had just read an article about bloat, recognized the symptoms, and rushed him to the vet. He lived many years after.
That was a wake-up call for me to learn more about a healthy lifestyle for my pets and the pets of my clients and why not I was learning to live a healthier lifestyle for myself.
So I started down the rabbit hole first by learning about breed-specific diets to raw feeding, titers vs vaccines just all types of lifestyle changes.
In 2013 my dog Walter was diagnosed with prostate cancer, at the time the consensus in the traditional veterinary community was that 6 months would be the end. Luckily I was working with an integrative veterinarian who was open to alternative treatments like Traditional Chinese Medicine and acupuncture. I also decided I personally could do more and by 2016 had become a certified canine massage therapist and Healing Touch for Animals Practitioner (HTA).
Between the help from the vet and the skills that I learned Walter lived another 4 good years. That’s when I decided I could help dogs other than my own. I lived in St Petersburg Florida and had a large pet sitting business, from there I started offering canine massage and HTA to my clients and then started a separate business called St. Pete Canine Massage. The massage business was doing very well but in 2017 I sold the pet sitting business and moved to Taylors, SC.
When I moved to Taylors I changed the name to Four Balanced Paws and set out to build my holistic practice. Let me tell you it was not as easy as it had been in St Pete. Maybe because I already had a client base in St Pete? Maybe because people here didn’t see the need? I decided to offer some classes for “Learn to Massage Your Dog” they did very well but they were a lot of work and not really what I wanted to do. I wanted to work with pets and not with people. So I continued my studies, I became a reiki master, an animal reiki master, I learned the Let the Animals Lead method of reiki, and I became certified in cold laser therapy and cranial sacral therapies.
In the past 2 years, I am seeing an uptick in people looking for the services I offer, things are starting to gel. I have regular clients, I get referrals from canine chiropractors and acupuncturists. I get to do what I love and that is helping animals live their best pain-free lives
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
I think that the first thing for me has been getting people to understand how much their pets can benefit from the services I offer. Even if they get massage or reiki for themselves they don’t see how the benefits can be the same for their pets.
The second thing is marketing the business. This is a small business without a lot of budget so I use Google and social media to get the word out, the problem with this is that they do not have a category to cover what I do, I do not fit into a box. I have to pick things that closely resemble what I do even if it’s not at all what I do.
Great, so let’s talk business. Can you tell our readers more about what you do?
I help animals live their best pain free lives. I do this holistically without the use of drugs using non invasive therapies like massage and reiki. These therapies are a compliment to your veterinarians care. At this time I come to your home, your pet will be more relaxed and there aren’t as many distractions.
Have you learned any interesting or important lessons due to the Covid-19 Crisis?
You have to respect people’s decisions about how they want to live their lives. It’s a two-way street. They have to respect my decisions and I theirs. Like when we were in the mask phase, I always asked people to mask for the visit, and they were happy to comply.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.fourbalancedpaws.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/4balancedpaws/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fourbalancedpaws
