Chiropractic Care for Animals

My first exposure to chiropractic and animals was as a freshman at the Chiropractic College that I attended in Toronto. I was rummaging through our college library, researching something or other, in the late 1960's, when I came across an old book of chiropractic manual procedures and techniques for adjusting various levels of the spine. This book was well illustrated, black and white, of course. As a new student, I hadn't yet learned much, so this book intrigued me. However, as I flipped through it and came to the last chapter, the glossy old photos suddenly had replaced the human patients with dogs. I admit that I was shocked and somewhat put off, a little disgusted even. I mean, dogs on tables and equipment properly meant only for people! I had dogs as a kid growing up and the experience was mixed. Dogs were smelly, drooly and shed their fur everywhere. Certainly, I felt as a freshman, these beasts had no place in a profession meant for human health.

I maintained this unfortunate opinion all through college and into my first few years of practice. Although truthfully, I never thought about the subject much. However, one evening while visiting the home of a good patient and her family whose company I had come to enjoy, she asked me about her dog. She reasoned that if I could help her husband and her children with their spines, then why could I not help the spine of her dog? This made perfect sense to her and under the expectant gazes of all those present, I guess it suddenly made sense to me as well. Or at least I was going to have to put up a good show.

The dog was a German Shepherd, as I recall, and he/she/it, I forget which, had a crooked way of standing and walking, as if it's spine was bent sideways. Apparently several weeks before, the animal had been chasing one the son's ATV and they had collided somehow; the dog getting the worst of it. It came up lame a day or two later at which time my friend carted it off to her Vet. The veterinarian diagnosed it as a case of deep bruising and trauma, but the animal didn't seem to be getting any better, even after several return trips to his office. Would I look at it, she asked?

What could I say? That I found touching suffering animals to be disgusting? That I didn't want to soil my hands and get dog hair all over? That I only deemed my skills to be for humans (some of whom smell worse than animals)? No, these reasons seemed selfish and unreasonable. So I took a breath and agreed to examine her family's pet.

Once I got over the fact that this Shepherd wasn't going to rip my face off with its fangs or claw me to death, I began to relax. The dog seemed to sense that I was trying to help and it relaxed as well, even when I touched the sore areas at the base of its spine. I had no experience with any of this, and no idea of dog anatomy, but armed with my friend's confidence that “a spine is a spine”, I ploughed ahead. The more I felt around this dog's back and legs, the more I became familiar with what I was feeling. It sure was obvious to me what was wrong. The dog had a humongous subluxation of its lumbosacral spine, the likes of which would have had any human writhing in pain and confined to bed. And yet this dog, this mere beast, was up and around, moving as best it knew how, never complaining, wagging its tail, going outdoors to play, enjoying its food, being petted and loved by the entire family. I was quite amazed, actually. The fact that an animal could show so much heart when in that much pain was either a credit to its species or a sad commentary on ours. This observation causes me to ponder and be humbled even to this day, as I see it frequently.

Anyway, at the sort of end of my “examination”, I took the attitude that, if a spine was a spine, then an adjustment was an adjustment, and figuring the dog weighed about as much as half-grown child, I would work on it as if it were one of its owner's kids, except on the floor. I put the dog, who by this time had become as willing a patient as any I'd ever seen, on the floor in a side-lying posture and thrust on its spine just as I would a 10-year old boy with a sore back. I expected that this is when the dog would snap, growl and get mean (some 10-year olds do). But it didn't. The animal continued to be complaint, cooperative and somehow even appreciative of my efforts.

It wasn't exactly a miracle, but once I was finished, the dog stood up, gave itself a shake and walked off, roughly as crooked as before. However, over the next few days, it seemed to heal and gradually straighten out. Was it me and my efforts, or just time and coincidence? Who can say for sure? But the family was happy, and they thought I was some kind of health-gifted phenom. And that's not all bad, is it?

That was my first experience as an animal chiropractor, an experience I took with me when years later I enrolled in a certification course in veterinarian chiropractic. I'll tell you more about that later, in some future article.

Author Contact Info: David Phillips D.C.
http://miltonchiropractic.chiroweb.com/