Pet Chiropractic Adjustment

Animal Chiropractic

Animal Chiropractic is an exciting and rapidly emerging treatment modality for musculoskeletal pain, dysfunction, and other disorders. There are currently two schools accredited to teach animal chiropractic, both located in the Midwest. The current course takes five months to complete, followed by final exams at the school and then a national certification exam. Dr. Israelsen received his training at Options for Animals, the original animal chiropractic educational program.

According to our current understanding of animal chiropractic, chiropractic problems occur when individual joints develop abnormal motion. This motion may be decreased, absent, or an inability to move a joint through its entire range of motion. A joint may become fixed in any portion of its normal range of motion. Pain, muscle spasm, nerve dysfunction, circulatory problems, metabolic problems, and behavioral problems may occur when this occurs. Animal chiropractic is the science of restoring normal motion and normal joint dynamics to the animal. When used alone or combined with medical, acupuncture, or herbal therapies, chiropractic has proven to be a highly successful method of improving overall health and function.

In most cases, chiropractic problems arise in the spinal column and directly affect the spinal cord and spinal nerves. Still, occasionally chiropractic problems may be found in extremities, including the shoulder, elbow, carpus (wrist), toes, and even tail! Due to the significant “overlap” in the effects of the nervous system, a problem in the pelvis can easily cause neck pain, and neck restriction can cause limping, etc. Quadruped animals are great compensators and develop ways of moving to compensate for pain in one area, resulting in overuse and eventual pain in others. It is often only when the compensatory pain becomes evident that we realize something is wrong.
Animal chiropractic is often combined with X-­‐ray analysis, physical therapy, acupuncture, and/or herbal therapy to reach a diagnosis and treatment plan. Although our most common cases involve musculoskeletal pain, we have seen resolution or improvement in gastrointestinal, seizure, and reproductive problems.
Chiropractic care is not limited to only small animals; about half of our caseload is equine care. Performance horses such as dressage, barrel racers, racehorses, and roping horses have all benefited from our care. Performance enhancement is often seen, as are improvements in behavioral issues such as saddling, being “cinchy”, kicking, refusing jumps, etc. At a rodeo, it is common to see the cowboys and their horses receiving chiropractic care! As we demand more from performance animals, the benefit of chiropractic care becomes apparent and well worth our while to pursue. Not only do they gain the ability to perform at a higher level, but also, our animals are more comfortable and happy doing what they do best.