Gov't Says "Naaayyyy" to Horse Massage

The Ariz. State Veterinary Medical Examining Board wants to throw entrepreneurs who massage animals without a veterinary license into jail and fine them $3,500 per violation.

Celeste Kelly is a horse massage therapist who decided to turn her love of horses into a successful business. She spent hundreds of hours learning about horse anatomy and developing massage techniques to obtain private certifications in animal massage.

Massage therapists do not need a medical degree to massage humans, but entrepreneurs like Celeste who want to massage animals in Arizona must spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to attend four years of veterinary school where they are not even required to learn massage.

Because of this regulation, Celeste stands to lose everything. That is why on March 5, 2014, the Institute for Justice, the national law firm for liberty, filed suit in Maricopa County Superior Court on behalf of Celeste and other animal massage therapists, challenging Arizona's animal massage regulation as an unconstitutional violation of animal massage entrepreneurs' right to earn an honest living

To learn more about this case, visit http://ij.org/AZmassage.

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