Holistic Medicine for Pets : A growing number of owners are turning to alternative care for their animals--and swear by the results.
It’s Wednesday morning. Lisa Uttz gets up early so that she can beat the traffic on her hour drive from Upland to North Hollywood. As she’s done every week for the past month, she has taken the morning off from her job to make the trip.
She loads her 12-year-old pug, Max, and her boss’s 8-year-old Labrador retriever into her car and heads for a holistic veterinary hospital.
Uttz, like a growing number of pet owners, has turned to alternative medicine for her dog. Max receives acupuncture treatments from Drs. John Limehouse or Priscilla Taylor at the Limehouse Veterinary Clinic.
According to David Jaggar, executive secretary of the International Veterinary Acupuncture Society, use of acupuncture on pets is increasing 15% a year in the United States.
The American Veterinary Medical Assn. recognized acupuncture as an accepted procedure in 1988. The “Textbook of Veterinary Internal Medicine,” used in veterinary schools nationwide, in 1989 added a chapter on acupuncture written by vet Sheldon Altman, who has practiced at the Animal Hospital in Burbank since 1970.
“I got into acupuncture in 1975 to prove it didn’t work,” Altman said.
“UCLA was just beginning to study the procedure for use with humans, and they were looking for vets to evaluate the effects of acupuncture on animals,” he recalled.
“I served as an independent evaluator, and instead of having my prejudices confirmed, I found that there was a verifiable improvement in the conditions of the pets I treated.”
He began to use acupuncture to treat animals suffering from chronic degenerative diseases.
Since pets are now living longer because of advances in nutrition and veterinary medicine, they are “experiencing the problems that go along with old age,” Altman said. “Pet owners also have higher expectations of what veterinary care can do for their animals. They know acupuncture is beneficial for humans, and they want the same kind of treatment for their pets.”
Not surprisingly, the traditional veterinary community remains cautious.
“Acupuncture is beneficial in the right situations,” said Dr. Stephen Ettinger, who practices at California Animal Hospital in Los Angeles and is the editor of the textbook containing Altman’s chapter.
“It’s very important, however, that a definitive diagnosis has been made to determine that your pet’s problem is one that will respond to acupuncture,” Ettinger warned. “Antibiotics aren’t appropriate for every medical condition, and neither is acupuncture.”
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Holistic vets say they use acupuncture to treat conditions such as osteoarthritis, disc disease, epilepsy, nerve degeneration and other nervous system conditions, bone and joint problems, and allergies.
Pet owners such as Uttz have found acupuncture especially effective for their pet’s arthritis.
“Max’s mobility and pain level have improved dramatically,” she said. “Before he started his treatments, we couldn’t even touch his hindquarters without making him flinch.”
The standard course of therapy for an animal with Max’s condition is six to eight weekly treatments, followed by maintenance treatments every two weeks or monthly.
Once the condition has fully stabilized, treatments taper off to once every three to six months, said Limehouse, who has practiced in North Hollywood since 1984.
“Every animal and every condition is different, however,” he said.
Limehouse’s interest in acupuncture for pets began with an ailment of his own.
“I went to see an acupuncturist for a pulled tendon in my hand in 1978,” he said. “The treatment worked so fast and so well for me that I began to wonder about using it in my veterinary practice for animals with arthritic conditions and hip dysplasia.”
His research on the subject ultimately led him to the International Veterinary Acupuncture Assn. and a rigorous five-month training program, which he completed in 1984. Taylor finished the same training in 1992, also after getting acupuncture for some complaints of her own.
John Craige, a vet, and his partner, John Ottaviano, doctor of Oriental medicine (OMD), also practice veterinary acupuncture in North Hollywood, at the Holistic Animal Clinic.
OMDs such as Ottaviano are permitted to practice on animals under the supervision of a licensed veterinarian.
Ottaviano’s interest in acupuncture began in 1971 when he read an article by New York Times columnist James Reston.
Reston had appendicitis while in China with then-President Richard Nixon, and Reston’s Chinese doctors used acupuncture for post-surgical pain control.
“I was working with the UCLA Pain Control Project at the time and was initially pretty skeptical,” Ottaviano said. Nevertheless, his interest was sufficiently piqued to study acupuncture in greater depth.
Ottaviano went on to conduct a clinical research project for the California Veterinary Medical Assn., using acupuncture with cases that had failed to respond to more traditional veterinary treatment.
Impressed with the results, he became one of the founding members of the International Veterinary Acupuncture Assn. in 1978.
He teamed up with Craige in 1980. Craige, who had been on the verge of retirement, said: “When I began to study the effects of acupuncture, I got a second wind.
“There’s something very satisfying about helping animals whose cases haven’t improved with more traditional methods,” he said.
One such owner is Cassandra Peterson, better-known to television viewers as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. Peterson took her Rottweiler, Bela, to Craige and Ottaviano when the dog began suffering from arthritis of the spine.
“When I first brought her in, she was unable to walk without yelping in terrible pain and had to be carried,” she said. “Another vet had tried cortisone therapy to no avail, and he recommended I have her euthanized. I decided to try acupuncture as a last-ditch effort, and now Bela’s romping around with my younger dog.”
Just how does acupuncture work?
“The most commonly accepted theory is that acupuncture stimulates a conduit of electrical-like energy in the body, which travels to the controlling center of the brain, the hypothalamus,” Ottaviano said.
“The hypothalamus then triggers chemical reactions which affect the endocrine system. The endocrine system, in turn, affects many mechanisms in the body.”
Craige said acupuncturists divide the body into 26 segments, or meridians, along which electrical energy flows.
“Each meridian is associated with specific organs, structures or functions in the body. Needles are used to stimulate energy on the appropriate meridian for the condition being treated,” he said.
Irene Rogers of West Los Angeles, who takes her pets to the Limehouse clinic, believes that acupuncture enabled her Skye terrier to live to be 18. He had begun to fail at the age of 10.
“We had eight more incredible years with him, and I treasured each day. Those years were a gift.”
WHERE TO GO
Location: The Animal Hospital, 2723 W. Olive Ave., Burbank.
Call: (818) 845-7246.
Location: The Limehouse Veterinary Clinic, 10742 Riverside Drive, North Hollywood.
Call: (818) 761-0787.
Location: The Holistic Animal Clinic, 5316 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood.
Call: (818) 769-5800.
