Retired Long Island nurse, health teacher uses ancient technique to calm anxious animals: Just like people

They’re all bow-wowed by her.A Long Island woman has dedicated her retirement to easing hundreds of anxious animals with an ancient Japanese calming technique she first mastered on people.“I believe in all that stuff for humans.So I thought, why can’t it work on animals, right?” Susan Denis, 70, of Sag Harbor told The Post.Denis, a former ICU nurse and later health teacher at Sag Harbor’s Pierson High School, administers the gentle, touching art of Jin Shin Jyutsu to four and sometimes two-legged friends.

It is a series of stress-reducing hand placements which originated in the 19th century that apply less pressure than a massage.“Energy runs through our bodies — and sometimes it can become locked away.By doing different holds or touches, we can open up the energy and have it flow freer when we become stressed,” she said of the method.“I’ve worked on all sorts for this: goats, chickens, horses, turkeys, pigs, sheep, cows, cats and dogs.

They all respond the same way, and just like people.”Denis became certified to practice Jin Shin Jyutsu on humans in 1998 and earned the credentials to work on all creatures — great and small — in 2022, shortly after retiring from teaching.The proven results have even awed the animal healer at times, such as one moment at Tamerlaine Sanctuary in New Jersey, where she still helps out.“I was working on this one goat, and all of a sudden, I looked up and saw several of them, all lined up as if they were saying, ‘Pick me! pick me!'” Denis recalled.

“Animals are much closer to us than we think.”Last year, after hearing of a particularly heartfelt case, Denis began volunteering twice a week at Southampton Animal Shelter Foundation to manage anxious rescues.“We had this dog, Candy, come in from Ukraine, and Candy was very shut down,” said Dr.Teri Meekins, the shelter’s medical director.“Susan came in and started working with her, and you could see a change in the same day,” Meekins added of ...