4-year old dog gets chiropractic care with amazing results
Last week I posted a short 15-second video on Facebook, which has since gone viral (more than 900 shares as of this writing). I’m somewhat excited about it, but I’m also not excited about it, so wanted to explain why. The video is about a dog that had lost movement in her hind limbs and was just dragging her feet along, yet in the 2nd video that was posted by its side, it shows the dog walking along just fine … at her third chiropractic visit.
As most people know, social media is mostly about all the positive stuff, the “look at what I did” kind of stuff. This post was no different. It was cool. It was amazing. The dog got great results. And it’s a dog. People love dogs, especially cute ones. And people shared it.
There are so many dogs & cats that do get positive results – the ones who have lost that movement in their rear legs but after a series of chiropractic adjustments (most often combined with medications), the animals regain the ability to walk. The adjustments help. Subluxations are adjusted, the nervous system starts working better, and the animal improves. It’s so cool. Dogs, cats….I’ve seen them both improve. It’s an awesome thing.
The part of me that is not that excited is only because not all dogs get that kind of results. I’ve had numerous dogs come in (& some cats), who have lost movement in their back end, have incontinence, get some relief, but never regain full control of their legs or bladder. And it’s sad. It bums me out. I want those dogs to get better. I want all animals to get better. But it doesn’t always happen that way. And if you are one of those owners who brought me your dog full of hope, and they didn’t regain their ability to walk, I’m sorry. I do hope they had less pain and some improvement in their quality of life felt though.
After all these years of being a certified animal chiropractor (through both the IVCA and AVCA), this is what I find helps animals the most with their chiropractic adjustments:
- Younger dogs respond faster. Older dogs, 10+ in age, take longer to improve. Guess that shouldn’t be surprising. Sometimes the young animals respond before going to a chiropractor, yet it’s still a sign they probably should be checked to try & prevent the problem from happening in the future.
- Animals that are brought in at the first sign of a problem, they respond faster. If the animal gets hurt and gets adjusted within a week (or even a month) of their injury or at the first sign of limping, they respond faster than the dogs that have had a problem numerous years.
While both of those statements may seem obvious, many owners wait to bring many years before they bring their animal in for a chiropractic evaluation. Sometimes it’s because they don’t know about animal chiropractic. So please tell others. Please keep sharing that post. Please tell them to go see a certified animal chiropractor, not just someone who is a chiropractor. Please, don’t wait so long to have your pet checked. At the first sign of a limp, or when they first get injured, bring them to your vet. Get them checked. Get x-rays and/or medications. Find out what’s going on. And then call us, let us see if we can help them recover faster. It can make a huge difference in the quality of life for your animal.
And if your pet has been adjusted before, I encourage you to maintain regular visits (often just once every 2-3 months) to make sure subluxations are being corrected …. this can help with overall movement, pain relief and quality of life. Let us know if we can help.
—- If you are not on Facebook, here’s the video on You Tube.
