Animal Chiropractic For Dogs from Shelters

Hi Dr. Erin O'Connor here from Vitality Chiropractic. Today we are going to talk about chiropractic care for dogs and cats that are in shelters and animal controls. If you have ever been to an animal shelter or animal control, you know that it is a very high stress environment. Some dogs are jumping around barking all day, some dogs are stressed out sitting in a corner all day. Hazel, here, who is our foster would hunch her back and keep her head down low and not want to move out of the corner of her cage at animal control. Over time, you can imagine, with muscles are staying tensed up in that position, it is also going to be pulling on the spine as well.

When I took Hazel in, I found that she had a lot of pain in her back. Even with rubbing the muscles in her back, she would tense up and cry. She also couldn't shake off. She didn't hold her head up in the air at all, she held it low to the ground. She also had a history of being abused, someone was hitting her over the head, so she was taught that hands did bad things to her. Another benefit of animal chiropractic for shelter dogs is to teach them that hands are good, and that they help them feel better.

I'm going to demonstrate an adjustment on Hazel. She has come to love getting adjusted, being fostered at our clinic she is a little spoiled being adjusted whenever she wants. It is a good idea to check your dog, if they came from a shelter or animal control to make sure everything is moving as it should, or if they had an abusive past to make sure they do not have any pain from that. Hazel has her adjustments down, she knows everything to expect and what we are doing next. As you see me adjusting her, I am actually going through and checking every joint in her body and making sure it is moving properly. We always end with tail traction (for the dogs that have tails). This is a nice stretch for them. They feel a nice big stretch from their tail all the way to the back of her head. It does more than that too, it helps break up any adhesions that are around the spinal cord. We also end with some cervical, or neck, traction.

Of course, chiropractic can benefit any dog, but especially if you have a dog that is from animal control or a shelter, with being in that high stress environment, it can definitely be worth while to make sure everything is moving as it should and that they don't have any pain going on.

Vitality Chiropractic Center
http://myvitalitychiropractic.com

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