THE GOOD DOG: Holistic medicine and dogs

I have to admit that I’ve always been a bit skeptical about holistic medicine. For example, acupuncture and pressure points that affect different parts of the body, including organs. Tinctures containing compounds that had been diluted hundreds, even thousands of times, sounded like tap water to me.

The reason for my skepticism was the placebo effect, which is quite powerful. In clinical trials, subjects were given sugar pills and told that it was a powerful pain reliever. Most claimed to have experienced diminished pain, even complete pain relief. Learning about studies like that while in college really biased me against Eastern medicine.
Then we had an opportunity to see it work on Minx, our 10-year-old female German shepherd.

One morning we were doing our normal routine with our dogs, and noticed that Minx was wobbly in her back end. She would collapse if she tried to turn too fast, or if she was bumped by another dog.

Since the onset of the symptoms was acute, we assumed that she must have strained her back the night before, during our evening ball-throwing session. So we gave it a few days to get better.

It didn’t. In fact, her condition worsened, which naturally caused us great concern, as we could not figure out what was going on.

Fortunately for us, we had heard from several clients, including one that has a littermate of Minx’s, about this holistic vet that cured many different ailments using nontraditional medical techniques. Since his clinic is very close to our house, we gave it a try.

Minx was so bad the day of her appointment that we had to help her get into our vehicle, and she stumbled when she jumped out at the clinic. The vet came in, felt along her spine, and made two chiropractic adjustments where he felt muscle tightness. He then gave her an acupuncture treatment. All the while, he was educating us as to what was happening, and how these treatments work.

Twenty minutes later, we checked out, and Minx leapt into our vehicle like nothing was ever wrong.

Needless to say, our minds were blown! We did one follow-up visit, and Minx is doing fantastic, only showing mild symptoms on rare occasions.

Holistic medicine is currently being used by more and more vets, as it is becoming better understood, and is frequently used in conjunction with traditional medicine. Talk to your vet about various treatment options for your dog, should the need arise.

My opinion regarding holistic medicine has completely changed. “Seeing is believing,” and since the placebo effect does not apply to dogs, I am sold. Having your mind completely changed, with a real event, is way too cool!

Lastly, if there are any questions or topics that you would like me to cover in future articles, please don’t hesitate to send them to me.
—
Jim Beinlich and his wife Bianca own Cool K9’s Dog Training in Colorado Springs. Find them at www.coolk9s.com or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/coolk9s.