What I find fascinating...
Today at work I noticed a fax to our hospital from another hospital talking about a dog's improvement on her walking after an acupuncture treatment. I've always heard about acupuncture on animals, I just didn't think it was used that commonly. Maybe common isn't a good word, but it is pretty cool to know one of our four legged patients benefited from acupuncture (and is apparently going for round 2 next week).
It always kind of bugs me when people automatically assume that acupuncture is fake, or it's just a placebo effect. Well, ok, acupuncture does not work on EVERYONE, and I've heard it summarized as "acupuncture works whether you believe it will or not, but it works better when you believe". There's obviously been cases where it has not helped, which could be attributed to a poor diagnosis either to the fault of the practitioner not being educated enough, or to a lying patient who does not tell the practitioner everything.
Then again, the placebo effect only works on humans, because humans are able to comprehend what is going on. The human mind may not be able to understand exactly how placing 3 needles in a triangle on the wrist will give the patient a sense of calm, to help them get rid of their chronic insomnia, but the mind can understand that it is a "Treatment" and it is "supposed" to heal the ailment. However, with animals you cannot teach them to understand what is going on. Communication is very different, and I'm willing to be anything that you cannot tell a dog to let a human stick them with needles and have their diarrhea stop, or help them regain the use of their front leg. Animals are pretty much the perfect example of how acupuncture is not a fake medicine principle, for even without the placebo effect, results are still apparent.
On a different note, the other night at work we had gotten a call from a rescue group we are affiliated with. They had found a badly injured dog along the side of the road, and rushed him over to us. The dog was in terrible condition, but today I went into work and he was able to get up and walk around. He looks something awful, though. He's been shaved in so many areas to help get treatments (one of his legs is in a cast, both front legs have bandages around them, his face is nearly half ripped off when he came in), and his face is oozing grossness. The original suspicion was that he was hit by a car, but we are thinking the dog was beaten. It is so sad to look at the poor dog and realize someone may have done this to him on purpose. He is emaciated, fur badly matted, but overall he is a pretty good dog. He's friendly, as long as you don't try to touch his wounds (I would growl at you too if you tried to touch my bumps and bruises), and he's super sweet. I can't imagine how someone could have hurt the dog in the way he was hurt. It makes me so so so so sad. He is looking as though he will be making a good and full recovery though, our manager has taken him under her wing as her new foster dog, and he spends all of his time at the hospital where we have vets on staff in case anything changes in his condition.
I love working at the animal hospital, not only for the cute puppies and cats that get brought in on a daily basis, but also for the stories and backgrounds of the hospital's animals. The staff frequently brings in their pets, and it's great how I can show up to work and be greeted by 2-4 dogs coming up to you looking for a pat on the head. Today I learned about China, one of the staff's pitbull. China is a sweet dog, very quiet, and apparently terrified of dogs. Her ears have been clipped short (typical of dog fighting pits), and today I learned from her owner that China used to be the bait dog in those dog fighting rings. No wonder she's terrified of other dogs, she's had the crap beat out of her by other dogs for no reason repeatedly. And the previous owner had clipped the ears himself. Most likely with scissors. How could you do that?! I can never understand how someone can be so terrible and cruel to another living being. I am so so so glad China was able to get out of that situation, and found a loving home with her current owner.
Stories like these make me want to adopt dogs specifically from bad pasts. It's unfair for these dogs to be in their terrible situation, they had done nothing wrong. I wish the world was more aware of the horrors behind buying puppies from puppy mills (even if they bought it from a pet store, because guess where pet stores get their puppies from?) as well as the horrors abused and neglected animals have gone through. The world would be such a better place if people adopted from shelters, even if they can't take home that cute little malteese puppy from the window at the pet store...
It always kind of bugs me when people automatically assume that acupuncture is fake, or it's just a placebo effect. Well, ok, acupuncture does not work on EVERYONE, and I've heard it summarized as "acupuncture works whether you believe it will or not, but it works better when you believe". There's obviously been cases where it has not helped, which could be attributed to a poor diagnosis either to the fault of the practitioner not being educated enough, or to a lying patient who does not tell the practitioner everything.
Then again, the placebo effect only works on humans, because humans are able to comprehend what is going on. The human mind may not be able to understand exactly how placing 3 needles in a triangle on the wrist will give the patient a sense of calm, to help them get rid of their chronic insomnia, but the mind can understand that it is a "Treatment" and it is "supposed" to heal the ailment. However, with animals you cannot teach them to understand what is going on. Communication is very different, and I'm willing to be anything that you cannot tell a dog to let a human stick them with needles and have their diarrhea stop, or help them regain the use of their front leg. Animals are pretty much the perfect example of how acupuncture is not a fake medicine principle, for even without the placebo effect, results are still apparent.
On a different note, the other night at work we had gotten a call from a rescue group we are affiliated with. They had found a badly injured dog along the side of the road, and rushed him over to us. The dog was in terrible condition, but today I went into work and he was able to get up and walk around. He looks something awful, though. He's been shaved in so many areas to help get treatments (one of his legs is in a cast, both front legs have bandages around them, his face is nearly half ripped off when he came in), and his face is oozing grossness. The original suspicion was that he was hit by a car, but we are thinking the dog was beaten. It is so sad to look at the poor dog and realize someone may have done this to him on purpose. He is emaciated, fur badly matted, but overall he is a pretty good dog. He's friendly, as long as you don't try to touch his wounds (I would growl at you too if you tried to touch my bumps and bruises), and he's super sweet. I can't imagine how someone could have hurt the dog in the way he was hurt. It makes me so so so so sad. He is looking as though he will be making a good and full recovery though, our manager has taken him under her wing as her new foster dog, and he spends all of his time at the hospital where we have vets on staff in case anything changes in his condition.
I love working at the animal hospital, not only for the cute puppies and cats that get brought in on a daily basis, but also for the stories and backgrounds of the hospital's animals. The staff frequently brings in their pets, and it's great how I can show up to work and be greeted by 2-4 dogs coming up to you looking for a pat on the head. Today I learned about China, one of the staff's pitbull. China is a sweet dog, very quiet, and apparently terrified of dogs. Her ears have been clipped short (typical of dog fighting pits), and today I learned from her owner that China used to be the bait dog in those dog fighting rings. No wonder she's terrified of other dogs, she's had the crap beat out of her by other dogs for no reason repeatedly. And the previous owner had clipped the ears himself. Most likely with scissors. How could you do that?! I can never understand how someone can be so terrible and cruel to another living being. I am so so so glad China was able to get out of that situation, and found a loving home with her current owner.
Stories like these make me want to adopt dogs specifically from bad pasts. It's unfair for these dogs to be in their terrible situation, they had done nothing wrong. I wish the world was more aware of the horrors behind buying puppies from puppy mills (even if they bought it from a pet store, because guess where pet stores get their puppies from?) as well as the horrors abused and neglected animals have gone through. The world would be such a better place if people adopted from shelters, even if they can't take home that cute little malteese puppy from the window at the pet store...