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Massage therapist Mercedes Clemens could soon return to working on animals, as a Montgomery County Circuit Court judge urged the state this week to "clarify" its position against allowing certified therapists to massage animals.

Clemens and her attorneys, who filed a lawsuit against the Maryland State Board of Veterinary Medical Examiners and the state Board of Chiropractic and Massage Therapy Examiners about a year ago, said Judge David A. Boynton's rejection of the state boards' motion for dismissal was encouraging.

"This gives the [Maryland massage therapy] board the chance to rescind its cease-and-desist order," said Scott Bullock, an attorney representing Clemens, following Tuesday's hearing in Rockville.

Bullock, with the Institute for Justice, an Arlington, Va., libertarian public interest law firm, said he hopes the board will publicly acknowledge that it does not have authority to regulate animal massage.

The massage therapy board is scheduled to meet Thursday in Baltimore. Grant Gerber, an attorney for that panel, said it should consider then whether to retain its policy of prohibiting animal massage by therapists.

Boynton, who questioned why the case had not yet been settled and said the chiropractic board's authority was limited to human massage, called for the parties to return for another hearing early next month after that board meeting.

Clemens, who lives in Gaithersburg and has her office in Rockville, said following the hearing that she is eager to return to massaging animals, which previously included horses, dogs and goats.

"That's what I did before I became licensed," Clemens said. "It was a big part of my practice. To have to give that up has been very difficult."

Clemens started practicing animal massage in Maryland in 2006, and she said the veterinary board earlier indicated it did not have a problem with massage therapists working on animals. In addition to being a licensed massage therapist for people, Clemens, a horse owner and rider for decades, has been privately certified in equine massage.

But in February 2008, the massage therapy board sent her a cease-and-desist order to stop massaging animals. Clemens also received a letter from the veterinary board in which an official said that someone without a veterinarian license who massaged animals would be "considered to be practicing veterinary medicine without a license."

The veterinary board, which is overseen by the state Department of Agriculture, clarified its position shortly after the lawsuit was filed by the Institute for Justice on behalf of Clemens. A state veterinary official said in a statement that Clemens was "not prohibited from massaging horses for the purposes she describes in her lawsuit," and that equine massage by non-veterinarians is fine "if the massage is intended solely for the purpose of helping the animal relax or generally feel better."

But the chiropractic body, under the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, has not issued a similar clarifying statement.

There is considerable interest in Maryland in animal massage among massage therapists, Clemens said. She said she knows others who have received cease-and-desist orders.