There appears to be an inconsistency among the mixers! An article ran recently in a chiropractic professional publication decrying the Arizona Attorney General’s position that chiropractors cannot adjust animals. The position of the article’s author is that animals need chiropractic care also and that the leaders in chiropractic should protect or insure the right of chiropractors to adjust animals. He raised the emotional question, should the profession just turn its back on all the animals of the world, leaving them to drugs and surgery only. This issue seems to transcend straight-mixing lines. We all agree that chiropractors should have the right to take care of all animals. It is our right and the right of the animals. We are all God’s creatures. Perhaps you do not choose to take care of animals in your office but we are all, mixer and straight alike, united that it is our right to adjust them.
Let’s look for a minute at the difference of approach and care administered by the diagnostic chiropractor and the so-called straight chiropractor. The straight chiropractor who wants to adjust animals brings them into the office [or makes a house or barn call], analyzes their subluxation, and corrects it. That is all he does. He is consistent in his approach to animals and human patients alike. The diagnostic chiropractor would also simply analyze and correct the subluxation of the animal. Yet when this same procedure is applied to human patients the diagnostic chiropractor accuses the straight of being irresponsible, incompetent, of being no more than a technician. The straight is at least consistent in his care of animals and humans.
6If the mixer is going to be consistent he should care for the animal as he does the human. Every mixer, in order to be consistent, should at least be listening to the animal’s heart rate and sounds. He should take a stool specimen to determine if the animal has worms and take its temperature for any abnormality. These are all stand ,ÿ3 ard procedures in a veterinarian’s office. He had better know the anatomy, physiology and diagnostic procedures for dogs, cats, horses, cows and whatever else he is going to treat as well as the veterinarian. Don’t forget to acquire the necessary office equipment. If the mixer is going to assume the responsibility of treating the animal-patient then he better practice responsible veterinarian chiropractic. Don’t try to tell a little old lady whose life revolves around her dog that you can only adjust Rover and send him home. Doesn’t he deserve the same quality of comprehensive, chiropractic care that you give your two-legged patients? Can it be that analyzing and adjusting the spine is all that a chiropractor should do in the care of an animal but neurological, orthopedic tests, physical exams, blood work, and looking into every body orifice is within his realm in caring for human beings? If we are going to practice diagnostic, comprehensive, responsible chiropractic, then practice it on all patients. Do they not all deserve total care by the conscientious chiropractor? Until such time as the mixer can and is willing to do that in order for him to be consistent, he should never touch any animal’s spine.
The issue here is one that affects every chiropractor whether he ever chooses to adjust an animal or not. The issue is what constitutes proper chiropractic care. It seems that the straight at least has determined in his mind what is proper chiropractic care whether the patient is a human or an animal. Is the mixer, on the other hand, espousing one position but exhibiting inconsistency in his philosophy in certain areas? V1n1
