Acupuncture for Animals

Veterinary acupuncture is gaining popularity all over the world. Here is an interesting experience of the North Carolina Verterinarian William Martin. In the year 1985, he signed up for a course on animal acupuncture offered by the International Veterinary Acupuncture Society or the IVAS.

This was a four day course held once a month for a period of four months at the end of which a certificate test was held. This course started with introduction to Chinese history and theory of acupuncture like the yin and yang, meridians and alarm points.

Dr. William Martin found this extremely irrelevant and boring and almost decided not to go back to the course. When he reached home, he found to his alarm that his five year old miniature Dachshund was paralyzed for the past five days due to a problem in the intervertebral disc. Western treatments did not help in any way.

In this desperate situation Dr.Martin decided to try the acupuncture and called up one of his course instructors for suggestions. With the instructor’s guidance,

Dr.Martin over the telephone learnt how to insert the regular hypodermic needles in the acupuncture points.

To his delight and surprise, he found the Dachshund up and about within four hours of treatment. This was the first miracle experienced by Dr.Martin. He went on to continue the course. Dr.Martin’s story is one among the many anecdotes attesting to the effectiveness of acupuncture in treatment of animals.