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Town of Merton - Kiyak doesn't look like a dog with a back problem, but like Brett Favre after games, the Belgian Tervuren finds himself gimpy after long days of herding sheep and jumping through obstacle courses.
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Just as the Packers quarterback heads to the training room when he's in pain, when the 7-year-old dog's back stiffens, he hobbles to his specialist: Chris Bessent, veterinary chiropractor and acupuncturist.
Without chiropractic adjustments and acupuncture, Kiyak's career as a competitive canine "would have been done years ago," said his owner, Anne Peterson of Waukesha.
Because she is a certified veterinarian, Bessent can legally treat Kiyak in her Town of Merton home.
But as demand for such services has grown, human chiropractors have added animals to their practice. And the issue of how to regulate the chiropractic treatment of animals has sparked a debate in Wisconsin and elsewhere, often pitting chiropractors against veterinarians.
Practicing chiropractic on animals without a veterinarian present is illegal in 48 states, including Wisconsin, where some human chiropractors nonetheless routinely treat animals.
Animal chiropractors say that restrictions on their work are unnecessary and that veterinarians want to control animal health care, and the income generated by it. Fido's trip to the chiropractor usually costs the same as his owner's - $30 to $50, depending on the seriousness of the injury.
"They want to make sure that they are protected economically, and this is a perceived limitation to the veterinarians if another profession is encroaching on their territory," said Julie Kaufman, the president of the Wisconsin Professional Animal Chiropractors Association. "It's about money and territory."
Veterinarians respond, however, that it is in the best interest of the animals to have a trained medical professional supervise the treatment.
The most recent attempt at a compromise came with a failed 2001 state Senate bill that would have allowed chiropractors to treat animals with a referral from a veterinarian, but not necessarily in the presence of one.
The American Veterinary Chiropractic Association, an organization started in 1989 by a Michigan woman who is both a veterinarian and a chiropractor, lists 228 practicing animal chiropractors in the United States, including 17 in Wisconsin. But nearly 70% of those listed are veterinarians who can legally perform chiropractic adjustments. The rest are human chiropractors, including six in Wisconsin, who also treat animals.
Because what they do is often against the law, many more chiropractors do not advertise their services, officials say. Instead, they operate by word of mouth and through referrals from friendly veterinarians.
Almost since animal chiropractic's inception, its followers have been fighting for acceptance. Only Nevada and Oklahoma allow animal owners access to animal chiropractors without a veterinarian's referral. But in Wisconsin and elsewhere, that does not stop chiropractors from working on animals.
"I could give you names of 15 people who do it without a vet present," said John Zastrow, a Marshfield chiropractor who treats dogs and horses. "It comes down to the best interest of the animal. If you see an animal suffering, what can you do?"
The North Carolina state veterinary board recently brought felony charges against an animal chiropractor for practicing veterinary medicine without a license. And Zastrow was reprimanded and fined $150 in May 2001 by the Wisconsin Chiropractic Examining Board for treating animals without a veterinarian present.
Zastrow, a chiropractor whose main practice is devoted to humans, makes house calls and visits veterinarians' offices to treat horses and dogs. On the house calls, Zastrow said, there rarely is a veterinarian present, though he requires his patients' owners to have a written referral.
"Most of the time I have the vets write letters, and they don't mind," he said. "As long as they can be reached if something happens, it's OK."
Both the state's veterinarian and chiropractic organizations maintain that veterinarians should examine what may appear to be a spine- or joint-related injury before a referral is written to a chiropractor.
"It's to protect the consumer. There's so many different possibilities it could be, it's not just always a lameness," said Randy Schuett, the past president of the Wisconsin Veterinary Medical Association.
Schuett said the veterinarian group would like to remove the requirement forcing animal chiropractors to work alongside veterinarians, but not the requirement for referrals from vets.
"I would refer to a good human chiropractor," he said. "I'm going to make sure the animal is diagnosed correctly."
Nonetheless, some animal chiropractors counter that many veterinarians are not trained to diagnose or treat injuries through chiropractic means.
State law also is inconsistent on the issue.
State veterinary provisions say vets can use chiropractic techniques. But the provisions for chiropractors explicitly say that chiropractic techniques can be practiced only on the human spine, said Russ Leonard, the executive director of the Wisconsin Chiropractic Association.
If that portion of the law is interpreted literally, Leonard said, neither veterinarian nor chiropractor should use chiropractic techniques on animals.
As a practical matter, Leonard said, it's unfair that human chiropractors have to work in the presence of a veterinarian. But he urged chiropractors not to break the law.
Still, chiropractors such as Joel Sperling do so. He adjusts dogs and other small animals in the waiting room of his Delavan office, while the examining rooms are reserved for humans.
"Most of the time what happens is the vet will write a referral and, yes, he's technically supposed to be there, but that's not necessarily happening," Sperling said. "There hasn't been a lot of problems with it."
For the most part, both chiropractors and veterinarians agree that chiropractic adjustments help animals, particularly horses and dogs such as Kiyak that participate in athletic competitions.
As a veterinarian, Bessent said that she would have treated Kiyak using traditional methods - anti-inflammatories, painkillers and muscle relaxers - that would have masked the symptoms but not helped his back. Bessent said her chiropractic training allowed her to recognize spinal- and joint-related injuries that she could treat better using alternative methods.
During Kiyak's recent office visit, Bessent poked and prodded the dog's back and neck, feeling for abnormalities in the dog's spine. When she reached a sensitive area in his hip, Kiyak yelped, jumped around and displayed his formidable teeth to the doctor.
"Human (chiropractic) has to be soeasy," Bessent said. "You tell them to sit still in a chair and they do. Half my time is spent getting the animals to relax."
Animal Chiropractic