Chiropractic for Pets: Benefits for Your Dog

Chiropractic for pets offers a natural approach to enhancing the health of our four-legged friends. In Mataró, the Marc Bony Chiropractic Center specializes in chiropractic adjustments that can relieve pain and improve your dog’s mobility.

Chiropractic and Pets

What is Chiropractic Care for Dogs?

Chiropractic care is a holistic approach to many behavioral and health problems in dogs. Chiropractic does not replace traditional veterinary medicine and surgery but provides an alternative method of care.

Chiropractic adjustments have proven to be very valuable in detecting and treating abnormalities already underway and other behavioral and attack problems. They have also been shown to relieve pain in the dog’s back and neck.

How Can I Tell if My Dog Needs Chiropractic Care?

There are numerous common tensions or traumatic situations, such as the birthing process, that can cause abnormal movements or restricted circulation produced in the spine. This change in proper spinal movement is what chiropractors call a “subluxation.” When a subluxation occurs, the dog’s spine loses its normal flexibility.

This results in stiffness, leading to resistance and decreased behavior. The most common symptoms associated with spinal subluxations are pain, which can manifest in various ways. Dogs in pain will show compensatory changes in posture and gait. These changes can cause tension in other joints and muscles.

Symptoms such as stiffness, poor mental attitude, walking abnormalities, or the presence of muscle atrophy (weakening) are generally associated with spinal misalignments.

Subluxations can also cause changes in muscle coordination and flexibility that affect the dog’s behavior capacity. These symptoms can include lack of coordination when walking, unusual and perhaps indefinable abnormalities in the walking pattern that vary from leg to leg and change depending on the walk, stiffness in lateral neck or back movements, walking with the leash (straight steps), shortening strides in one or two limbs, inability to use the hind thighs, or difficulty in flexing.

Common complaints from dog owners are related to resistance and stiffness when moving in one direction, irritability, decreased behavior, and sensitivity to touch, such as when being brushed.

How Can a Chiropractor Adjust My Dog?

Once the initial exam is completed, the animal chiropractor will perform an adjustment in the affected area of the spine to restore normal joint movement and relieve muscle spasms and pain.

A chiropractic adjustment is very specific and is performed at high speed, with low controlled force by a thrusting hand, directed in a specific direction of a particular joint.

How Many Treatments Will My Dog Need?

There are several factors that determine the number and frequency of adjustments needed to correct the problem. The age and physical condition of the dog are important: young and healthy dogs will generally require fewer adjustments than older dogs or those with severe health issues.

The severity of the problem is another important factor: if permanent damage has occurred, returning to full flexibility may not be possible, and multiple adjustments may be needed to achieve the greatest possible flexibility. The length of time the problem has been present is also a significant factor: long-standing or chronic issues typically require more adjustments to correct than acute problems.

The Veterinary/Chiropractic Team

Chiropractic can also offer valuable assistance to veterinarians treating lameness. The goal here is to find the primary source of pain, rather than treating what might be the secondary source.

Chiropractic offers expertise in evaluating back and joint problems that can prop