REIKI healing - the laying on of hands to cure a whole host of ailments - has for years been the preserve of cosseted Hollywood stars.

Now a Salford-based practitioner of the ancient art if offering the service... for your pets.

Jean Davies, 51 of Trinity Riverside, in Salford, employs the spiritual practice, similar to the laying on of hands, to channel healing energy through her palms into the bodies of suffering animals

One of her ‘clients’ was 11-week-old Frank, a ginger kitten featured in the Advertiser on Thursday, August 14, one of three surviving kittens out of a litter of seven, currently housed at Animals In Distress, in Irlam.

Jean, who visits the Silver Street sanctuary on a regular basis to treat the animals, said: "The Advertiser described him as a little fighter and that's exactly what he is.

"Frank was very ill but he battled back and when I went to see him, he had a lot to say for himself.

"I started working on him when he was almost three weeks old, had just been taken away from his mother and siblings due to his infection, and was a tiny scrap.

"He would talk to me, and spend ages climbing all over me. At the start he'd fit in my hand, with my other hand gently on top of him, delivering healing Reiki energy."

Jean worked for 30 years in the travel industry before joining Esso, and when she knew redundancy was looming, instead of being the end of her working life, it was the start of a more rewarding future, as a Reiki healer, pet sitter and intuitive animal communicator.

She went on: "It was while I was thinking about my future that my own cat Bella became a bit poorly.

"I knew for some reason that if I just put my hands on her, it could make her better. I did it, and half an hour later, she leapt away. It had worked.

"I’d heard the word Reiki before, but I didn’t know what it meant. I did some research and before I knew it, I’d enrolled at a Reiki school."

"I’m not a religious person I don’t follow any strict and unquestioning dogma," she adds. but I am a spiritual person and I do also like yoga. I genuinely feel that something very positive has happened to me.

"I might feel a fuzzy feeling in the palm of my hand when I’m treating an animal and the area which is being treated will begin to get warmer. It feels lovely."

WHAT IS REIKI? (pronounced Ray-Key): Reiki is a method of natural healing based on the use of ‘Universal Life Force’. It was rediscovered by Dr Usui in the 19th Century