Animal Chiropractic

My central passion is for animal chiropractic and other animal treatment modalities… For me this is what all the hard work and qualifications are for!

Over the years I have treated such a wide variety of animals: from skunks, guinea pigs and rats, to ferrets and horses, donkeys, sheep, cows, sugar gliders, meerkats, and a bearded dragon!

From conducting a large scale Dairy Cow and Chiropractic treatment study, to devising a rehabilitation program for a ferret with a paralysed leg from a back injury, my animal work has taken me far and wide, into areas of work I had never dreamed possible.

I started by treating large animals - concentrating on racehorses, eventers, and endurance horses. all very different sports, and in itself very rewarding. My reputation spread far and wide, eventually crossing borders and completing several pre-purchase check ups across Europe, for horses valued up to £100k. Good times!

Visit Chiropractic Care for Animals

The passion for dog work has stemmed from when I first qualified with the IAVC, and I found treating and understanding canine problems slightly easier than the equine counterparts. This spark gradually grew and the flame it turned into set me on a different trail… In 2006 I met a Veterinarian called Rachel Mowbray, based in Dursley, Gloucestershire. She had brought her little dog Meg in to see me for a chiropractic check up. She and I initiated a change of focus of my animal chiropractic career, and I soon started working for Vale Vets on a regular basis. This is a big referral hospital, and the knowledge base that this opened up and created for me was vast. I was working on a weekly basis with Rachel in Vale Vets, and the focus was originally on sporting dogs, and then other vets started to refer into us, and we became the go to place for all the chronic lame cases or cases where local vets just didn’t have enough knowledge or time to investigate properly.

Rachel introduced me to Agility and other dog sports, and learning from a vet who was also a world class dog handler, gave me the insight, allowed me to learn from behind the scenes, and grew the passion that I have today. I have definitely got the bug, not just for agility, but the more I investigate other sports, the more I feel the connection and the passion that those involved feel… dogs are such amazing and wonderful creatures…

Back problems, shoulder & neck problems, lameness, poor performance, and a multitude of odd symptoms like dripping urine, puppy sitting, coat flicks denoting problems under that region, struggling with getting in the car, van, sofa, bed etc, behaviour changes both with other dogs and with you, removing themselves from certain situations. These are areas I can help to investigate, and if chiropractic care is not the best route for you dog, I can suggest a different action, and with a network of professionals around me, there is often something that may help.

Rehabilitation is my speciality within the dog world. The application of chiropractic within the rehab setting is relatively new, many physio’s more recently recognising the benefits of getting the structure and neurology correct before the application of muscle strengthening and re-programming techniques. The 2 systems do work hand in hand, and complement each other extremely well, if the professional is open enough to accept the input from another! However much of the physiotherapy work is also covered by the chiropractic for rehabilitation…

I have been trying to understand how to piece the human chiropractic neurology learning that I have gained, into the canine world, and seeking to change our canine friends’ lives for the better. Much of the current information cannot be transferred, but there must be a way somehow? We have some great articles in human medicine, and how to bring that to the animal world, making it palatable for the dog handler would be a great challenge and a rewarding one hopefully in the long term.