Canine Chiropractic Care: Supporting Your Dog’s Health Through the Years

A Leap Forward in Canine Wellness: Preventative Chiropractic Care

Our canine companions bring boundless joy and energy into our lives, and as responsible pet owners, we strive to ensure their vitality remains unhampered as they age. Chiropractic care emerges as a beacon of preventative wellness, aiming to maintain joint health, soft tissue resilience, and nervous system integrity throughout a dog's life.

Understanding Chiropractic Care for Dogs

Canine chiropractic care involves adjusting misalignments in the spine and other joints, which can occur through normal activity or as a result of injury. These adjustments help ensure that the nervous system functions without interference, which is crucial as it controls the overall operation of the body.

The Preventative Power of Chiropractic Adjustments

Proactive chiropractic care serves as a cornerstone for maintaining your dog’s mobility. Regular adjustments can prevent the wear and tear on joints that often leads to discomfort and mobility issues in later years. By keeping the spine and joints in proper alignment, we can support the musculoskeletal system's natural ability to heal and regenerate.

Soft Tissue and Joint Maintenance

Beyond the bones and nerves, chiropractic care attends to the health of soft tissues—muscles, tendons, and ligaments. This holistic approach aids in preventing injuries and can speed up recovery when strains or sprains occur, keeping your dog agile and active.

Aiding the Aging Process

As dogs age, their risk of developing arthritis and other degenerative conditions increases. Chiropractic care can play a pivotal role in managing these conditions, offering a non-invasive and medication-free method to manage pain and improve quality of life.

Tailoring Chiropractic to Canine Needs

Just as with humans, each dog's chiropractic needs are unique. A skilled animal chiropractor will tailor their techniques to suit the size, age, and health status of the dog, ensuring safety and comfort throughout the treatment.

Conclusion: Embracing Chiropractic for Canine Longevity

Investing in chiropractic care for your dog is an investment in their long-term health and happiness. It’s a step towards ensuring that as they age, they continue to live life to the fullest, with a body that’s as strong and capable as their spirit.

Animal Chiropractor For Agility Dogs

Agility competitors (both dogs and humans) have to be in great shape to perform well.

But let’s face it, the dog is the high performance athlete in this case.

If you and your pooch are competing in dog agility you know that every second counts.  

Just like in high performance human athletes there is a difference between being injured and being hurt.

Being injured usually requires time off to heal, recoup and rehab back to shape.

Being hurt usually means, playing through discomfort, but not being able to perform at optimum capacity.

The same is true in your performance agility dog.  It’s obvious when they get injured. They may go lame, or pull up and stop at obstacles.  However, when they are hurting signs may be less obvious.

The most common objective measure that a dog may be hurting is that their performance is slipping for no apparent reason. You are training hard, they are responding to you well but yet the time isn’t up to where it should be.

This is a good time to have your agility dog check by an animal chiropractor.

When joints in the spine or extremities are not functioning optimally, your pet’s performance is not going to be optimal either.

Time and time again I see agility dog’s that respond really well to getting a chiropractic check up and adjustment.  

Think of it like a tune up analogous for a high performance sports car.   

After all you would never miss an oil change with your sports car would you?

What is the difference between adjusting a dog and a human?

First off the principle of chiropractic care is the same for both.  A human and a dog both have a spine and nervous system. The function of their spine directly affects the function of their nervous system.  The nervous system is in control of muscles, organs and sensory function. In everyday life problems with this can show up in performance, mobility, or daily routine.

The major difference between a human chiropractor and an animal chiropractor is understanding the different anatomy of each species and the related stress caused by this different anatomy.

Let me give you a few examples…

The number of vertebra a dog has in certain sections is different that a human.

Both have 7 in the neck (cervical)

In the midback (thoracic) human’s have 12 while dog’s have 13.

Finally the low back (lumbar) human’s have 5 while dog’s have 7.

This is basic spinal anatomy that if you were a human chiropractor only you would not know this difference.

Another important factor an animal chiropractor must take into account is the different types of stress the spine will take in a four legged animal compared to a two legged human.

The spine of a human is vertical and is affected mostly by compression, while a dog or horse have horizontal spines which are affected greatly by shear force.  

Understanding these differences allows an animal chiropractor to use correct techniques and forces to certain areas that may be weak points due to the differences in anatomy between species.

Lame horse? Are you seeing the full picture?

Obviously there are many reasons why you can have a lame horse.  But sometimes treating a specific area only will get you your horse so far.

Your horse has four limbs for a reason.  When an injury affects a certain limb the other three limbs must work overtime.  Not to mention the stabilizing musculature that will be sent into overdrive.

Correcting the area where the injury occurred is absolutely necessary but looking at the rest of the compensatory issues while they are current may help to prevent future nagging injuries.

After any injury I recommend having your horse checked and corrected before this becomes the new normal.

At the end of the day your horse is not just a machine.  It is more than a sum of it’s parts and must be evaluated as a whole.

Hip Pain in Dogs - Can an Animal Chiropractor Help?

If you have a large breed dog you probably know that their hips can cause trouble.  Whether it is severe hip dysplasia or osteoarthritis the hips can affect the health of the dog, their quality of life and the pocket book of the owner.

Whether it is a human or a dog the same principles of wear, tear and degeneration apply.  The difference is when humans have a bad hip they don’t run, jump and play. Dogs on the other hand do.

I don’t know how many owners try to limit the dog’s exercise, but when the dog finds a squirrel in the backyard they get up and go, and make a youthful leap off the back deck causing impact to those bad joints.  They come back limping and it stays this way for the following 3 days.

Week after week this pattern continues.

If you can’t correct the behaviour, how do we make the joints adapt to handle those repetitive stresses that are placed on it.

Motion is lotion.

Your dog needs movement. Or should I say your dog’s hips need movement.  No just any movement, proper movement.

Dogs with hip issues, will get atrophy of the muscle from disuse and from a phenomenon called arthrogenic muscular inhibitiion.

Regular check ups from your animal chiropractor can be a game changer in the function of your dogs hip health.  I have literally seen old dogs get a bounce back into their step.

When owners tell me their dog is now walking them and that hasn’t happened in years, I know the visit to the animal chiropractor was well worth it.

The bottom line is dogs don’t lie.  The proof is in the pudding!

Why I would never trust a regular chiropractor to work with my dog…

I never adjusted my dog out of concern that his anatomy is different than mine and yours.  I recently completed the first of five modules in a veterinary chiropractic course and let me tell you I made the right decision by not adjusting him. 

Let me give a short explanation why. 

First of all this course goes really in depth in dog and horse anatomy (we even work with and are tested on cadavers).  Let me tell you that although a spine may look like a spine the anatomy of the joints, muscles and other tissues as well as the stress placed upon them is completely different across different animals and are especially unique when compared to us humans.  So needless to say, applying human techniques to animal spines is like throwing darts blindfolded, you might get lucky and hit the board once but by no means is it a detailed systematic approach.

Secondly the health conditions, repetitive strains and traumas animals can face are not the same as what humans deal with.  The obvious is that animals are not vertical structures, they walk on four legs and the result is they deal with shear forces as opposed to compressive forces in their spines which can affect their spines differently.  Also the conditions that can present although similar to some human conditions can present differently. Finally some breeds are highly predisposed to health conditions that if adjusted by a chiropractor could potentially be life threatening to the dog. In essence if a human chiropractor applies human techniques to animals it can not only be dangerous to the animal but it is very naive for the chiropractor to think that it would be effective in the first place.

I hope that puts into perspective the difference animals and humans, as well as the type of training that goes into becoming certified to work with animal chiropractic in Canada.  If you are looking for an animal chiropractor, I will be licensed early 2018.  Also I need work with and present case studies on animals. If you have a dog or horse that you would like to get checked, please reach out to me and we will work together to help them.

In health,

Adam