Can you see yourself manipulating the spine of a rodeo bull? Or getting
touchy-feely with an iguana? As animal chiropractors, Alison Seely and William
Schmidt do it for a living -- and love every hairy, scaly minute of it.
A veterinarian by training, Seely first discovered the wonders of chiropractic
when she married into a family of chiropractors. "My husband, three of his
brothers and one sister-in-law are all chiropractors," she explains. "For
any vet who marries a chiropractor, it's pretty inevitable that they'll
become interested in animal chiropractic."
Another event that convinced her was watching a seemingly untreatable colt
respond to chiropractic in her last year of veterinary school. "The delighted
owners sold the colt at a great profit after the first adjustment," she recalls.
Now Seely divides her time between her veterinary practice and animal chiropractic
work. Most animals welcome an adjustment, she says, which is a much different
response from the one she gets "as a white-coated, needle-bearing veterinarian."
Schmidt, on the other hand, began his career as a chiropractor. He works
in Arkansas. "I have approximately 30 years of human practice, 13 years of
animal practice," he says. "I generally do horses, though I have and do treat
dogs, cats, lions, tigers, snakes and rabbits."
Back in the days when he treated only humans, Schmidt had a patient who
owned thoroughbreds. Intrigued by the possibility that his profession could
also help his patient's animals, Schmidt sought out some old hands at
practicing chiropractic on horses.
"I saw they could increase a horse's speed by 10 to 13 links," he
recalls. "So then I followed them from track to track around the U.S. I probably
worked with these guys on a few thousand horses."
He estimates that he "spent in the area of $60,000 to learn what I know
about animals" on his cross-country adventures. It's paid off, though:
Schmidt is now considered one of the top equine (horse) chiropractors in the
U.S.
He still treats humans on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. "Generally,"
he says, "on Tuesdays, Thursdays and on Saturday mornings, I close up and
I work with a vet in Little Rock, Arkansas, on animals. I fit the animals
around the human practice."
Both Schmidt and Seely have certification from the American Veterinary
Chiropractic Association (AVCA). AVCA sets the standards for animal chiropractic
in North America.
"I think obtaining certification is important," says Seely. She made the
trip to the AVCA headquarters with her husband in 1994.
"When we went, we were both of the opinion that it was a skill that would
be [more easily] learned by a chiropractor than by a vet," she recalls.
But after seeing dogs that have been injured by chiropractors unversed
in animal chiropractic, she thinks it's just as important for chiropractors
to receive training as it is for vets. "They shouldn't assume that their
skills can just be translated to an animal," she says.
Seely and her husband conduct seminars for horses and riders "where he
checks out the riders and I check out the horses," she says. "It's interesting
because you can predict the problems being experienced by the horses from
what the riders are experiencing, and vice versa. Certainly, a horse who's
out of whack will put them out of whack."
Besides the obvious physical benefits to the animals, animal chiropractic
fosters "a better relationship between the animals and the owners," according
to Schmidt.
It can even improve the health of the owner. Seely recalls one elderly
woman who felt that the worsening condition of her beloved dog was hastening
her own decline. "The neat thing was seeing this lady come back to life again
along with her pet," she says.
On a more personal level, remarks Seely, "It's very rewarding to see
exciting changes happen to an animal through touch.
"There are very many cases I can think of: a dog who had never wagged his
tail before being adjusted, seeing horses where no one wants to deal or touch
the horse because it's in such pain and then seeing that horse metamorphose
as a result of chiropractic therapy."
Because animal chiropractic is still a developing field, practitioners
must believe in the value of what they're doing. "They need to have fortitude
because right now there's a lot of back-stabbing, bitterness and turf
wars going on," says Schmidt.
"There's a lot of people out there in the chiropractic profession
who aren't interested in treating animals. And there's also a lot
of people in the veterinary profession who aren't interested in chiropractic."
What sustains him, he says, is "seeing the response of the animals, or
what happens when an owner has been told to put the animal down and then doesn't
have to after the animal has had chiropractic treatment."
Such was the case with Elvis, a bucking bull who had been seen by five
different vets. Each vet concluded that his was a hopeless case. "This bull
was so bad that the other bulls tried to kill him," says Schmidt.
Then Schmidt treated him. "I found a misalignment where the riders sit,"
he recalls. "Two weeks after the adjustment, he was back at work and bucked
off nine different riders."