First, a little about my background.  By all appearances I am a qualifed animal chiropractor. I graduated from Palmer College of Chiropractic in 1981 and have been licensed ever since.  I also completed the American Veterinary Chiropractic Association’s (AVCA’s) certification course in 1993. I’ve written three books on animal chiropractic.  I have practiced for over 20 years, treating thousands of patients.  And I’ve conducted over 400 animal chiropractic seminars around the world.  I’ve trained, at least in part, most of the people who adjust animals today.  I’m not bragging.  I don’t think I’m better than anyone.  I’m just stating the facts.

 

    Here are some other facts.  The aforementioned organization’s position is that only qualifed animal chiropractors who have taken their course or similar courses should be allowed to practice animal chiropractic.  As far as I can tell this has been their position since their inception in 1989.  Nevermind there were only a handful of practitioners who founded that association.  And that is my point.  There is only a handful of them even today.  

 

    It is estimated there are about 8 million horses in this country.    And by my count there are less than 500 so called qualified animal chiropractors in the U.S., and a lot fewer in other countries. These practitioners are a combination of licensed human chiropractors and licensed veterinarians--close to an equal number of each. Out of these 500 qualifed animal chiropractors about half of them only adjust small animals.  That leaves us with 250 qualifed horse chiropractors.  This number gets even smaller when you consider that many of these practitioners also treat small animals.  This number further dwindles since half of these 250 horse chiropractors are also human chiropractors who divide their time treating people.  But here’s the kicker. Over half of the qualifed human chiropractors, the one’s who’ve taken the AVCA’s course and hold a license to practice on people, are not legally allowed to adjust animals!  Some states allow licensed human chiropractors to adjust animals under veterinary supervision or with a veterinary referral.  I happen to agree with this.  I think a licensed vet should always be consulted before any treatment is administered to an animal.  But a good percentage of the states won’t allow chiropractors to work on animals even if they agree to work with a vet.  So now we’re down to about 100 or so certified animal chiropractors in this country to service eight millions horses.  Even if one per cent of these horse owners wanted their horses to get adjusted then each of these 100 practitioners would have to adjust these horses the same way Sun Myung Moon marries people.  They would have to herd them all in a huge field and crack them en masse.  Sort of like Woodstock--with Joe Cocker leading the charge.  "Gimme an ’A’.  Gimme a ’D’......."What’s that spell?  What’s that spell?  What’s that spell?"  Or do I date myself!

 

     Sure, there are those who will disagree with me.  That’s fine.  But many horse owners tell me they have a hard time finding a good horse chiropractor in their area.  Some say it’s impossible.  So what’s left to do?  Right!  Do it yourself. Adjust your own horses. And why not?  Don’t most horse owners already provide medical care to their horses by giving them medication, shots, and sewing up wounds?  And best of all, horse owners are ALLOWED to treat their own horses.  They don’t have a chiropractic license that gets in their way.  Like I said before, many states will not allow a trained, professional and licensed chiropractor to adjust animals.  But I know of very few cases, if any, where a lay person was fined or disciplined for adjusting horses.  The Sword of Damacles isn’t hanging over their head.  We can’t blame this one on Florida’s faulty voting machines.

 

    One last thing.  Chiropractic is not surgery.  It poses nowhere near the risks of surgery--especially when applied to horses.  I’ve had a few critics of my book, The Well Adjusted Horse--Equine Chiropractic Methods YOU Can Do, pleading with the public not to buy this book, or at the very least, not to perform any of the methods.  Their argument being, "What’s next?  A book teaching you how to perform open heart surgery?"  How ridiculous.  These critics should know better than to put Tabasco sauce in their Preperation H.