Creature Comfort
Say what you will about chiropractors and their spine-shifting techniques, says Beth Larsen. “But look at my dog. She’s just happier and more comfortable after this.”
This, for which Larsen pays roughly $50 a shot, is a ritual for her golden retriever, Marnie, whose back was broken when she was a puppy.
Every few months, Marnie and Larsen visit the Limehouse Veterinary Clinic of Holistic Medicine in Toluca Lake and await the bone-popping fingers of Dr. Priscilla Taylor Limehouse, half of the husband-wife team that runs the clinic, which also offers acupuncture for animals.
Limehouse clicks bones, stretches muscles and rubs tendons all over Marnie’s shaggy body while the 7-year-old dog lounges on the examining table. Marnie’s eyes glaze over as Limehouse works her hands over vertebrae the same way they glaze over when someone scratches the canine’s ears or rubs her jowls.
“She loves this,” Larsen said.
The application of chiropractic medicine to animal care dates back 10 years, “but has become rather trendy in the last three years,” said Dr. Alan Nixon, a professor at the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine in Ithaca, N.Y. “Some consider it, for humans or animals, as hocus-pocus. But it can make a difference on a selected number of problems, such as back injuries and muscle problems.”
The technique, Nixon said, is useful much the way a therapeutic massage is useful.
“Otherwise, for other things like spine straightening, the jury’s still out on chiropractic animal care,” Nixon said.
Though it sounds like an “only in L.A. kind of thing,” it is not, according to Sue Geranen, director of the state Veterinary Medical Board.
Chiropractic animal clinics can be found throughout California, she said, though she noted that they are so few and far between that the state has no count of how many exist. According to Geranen and the Glendale Humane Society, two San Fernando Valley clinics--one the Limehouses’ clinic and the other a chiropractic clinic run by Dr. Kenneth Rose in North Hollywood--offer the specialized treatment, along with a handful of others in the Southland.
Geranen’s board, a division of the California Consumer Affairs Department, licenses and tests veterinarians in the state.
“When veterinarians perform chiropractic, it’s called ‘muscular-skeletal manipulation,’ ” she said. “The chiropractors who perform on humans own the name, so MSM is used to describe the same techniques when performed on animals.”
Critics of chiropractic medicine might say MSM is another way to refer to quackery, but advocates of the technique swear by it.
“Look at the people who come in--they leave saying how happy they are their pet is moving fine again,” said Dr. Kenneth Rose, a chiropractor who expanded his business five years ago to include the shaggy and four-legged patients that usually arrive at appointments on the end of a leash. “Their pets are happy. That’s what counts.”
Rose, a horse enthusiast, practices his chiropractic craft on horses more than any other animal, he said.
“I got tired of hearing vets come up with the same thing: medication and rest,” Rose said. “This is a lot like massage therapy, and it works. The horses move fine when it’s over.”
Chiropractic care for horses, according to Nixon, has proved quite useful in relieving muscle strains common to the animals. However, he noted, no scientific studies exist on the technique.
“I’ve heard the skeptics,” said Leslie Collins, director of the American Veterinary Chiropractic Assn., based in Hillsdale, Ill. “But I started out as a client of a vet who offered chiropractic. One of my show dogs suffered an injury and [chiropractic] worked. The dog’s fine now.”
According to the association, 250 animal care providers have been licensed to perform animal chiropractic care in the United States, with about 30 more worldwide.
“They don’t have to get certified with us, but we’re the only organization that offers certification,” she said. Certification involves some 150 hours of training at the association’s campus, a classroom and barn, outside Chicago.
California first approved veterinary chiropractic care in 1989, and revised the rules governing its use four years ago to allow both veterinarians and chiropractors to use the technique, according to California’s Veterinary Medical Board.
“There was a demand for it,” Geranen said. “So we approved it. It may or may not work. But people seem happy with the results.”
Last year, the state board received only six complaints regarding animal chiropractic clinics, none in the Southland, she said.
Though there are both enthusiasts and skeptics, there are also those who don’t know what to think, but are willing to give the practice a chance.
Seated beneath the portraits of dog and cat patients that dot the walls of the Limehouse clinic waiting room, Margaret Sachs’ black lab, Shazam, has an itch.
“He seems happy and well adjusted,” Sachs said, as she smoothed out her 5-year-old dog’s coat. “But he cries sometimes, and is always scratching himself. I’ve taken him to two different vets and they either keep him in the back room and offer medication, or say he needs some kind of specialist, which costs a lot of money.”
Sachs was visiting the clinic in Toluca Lake for the first time, and said she hopes the Limehouses can offer treatment that is effective, natural and not “prohibitively expensive.”
“I had to wait three months for an appointment, but hopefully it’ll be worth it.”
