Another Akita Adventure

Another Akita Adventure

 

If you asked somebody about the characteristics of an Akita, you might get strong-willed, dignified, courageous, and did somebody mention, they love to run away?  A loose gait, an unaware owner, a powerless child holding the leash—a moment of confusion and that’s the diversion they’ve been waiting for.  It’s roaming time once again.

 

Do you remember your first dog?  Ours had fur, four legs and was our first ‘child’.  We didn’t feed him some ‘off label’ dog food. It was the super duper high-end food that was definitely not Purina.  We loved him like he was our child.  We had those lame yellow placards you put inside your car’s windows that read Akita on board.  We were in love with that crazy dog.  Kuma (bear in Japanese) had been gone from his latest ‘roam’ only for a short time and when he finally returned, he had some dried blood around his neck.  We thought it was probably from a tussle with another dog.  We didn’t think much about it at the time.  My wife and I cleaned him up and welcomed him home.  We put up more gates, thicker leashes, and increased security to prevent another ‘roaming episode’.

 

Within a day or two, he started to limp and he was yelping if he tried to move or go outside.  His whole personality changed from Akita to HELP ME!  We had never seen this side of him and we were ‘freaked out’ to say the least.  We had to do something right now.  At that time in my life, I wore a fresh pressed white clinic lab coat with a stethoscope around my neck.  I was an allopath to say the least.  Ultrasound, interferential, galvanic, ionophoresis, you name it and I used it.  My practice was made up of sports injuries and acute, adult low back and neck pain.

 

What were we to do?  My wife looked at me with that look of ‘do something’.  We called our town vet and made an appointment that day.  The vet was very accommodating and kind despite seeing our pet on such short notice.  The blood work and x-rays revealed nothing.  He started talking about a new disease called Lyme disease (tick-borne) which can affect dogs.  He had no wounds or redness around his paw.  It was the dead of winter and the vet had no answers except steroids (an Akita on steroids?) and pain medication.  Just then there was a voice in my head saying this is a Chiropractic case…he has a pinched nerve (VSC) that’s damaged in his spine.  I told the vet and he smirked and said that there’s no such thing as a pinched nerve.

 

$376 later (perhaps $1,000 today’s dollars), we left with no diagnosis and no help.  Even though I knew it was (or at least I hoped it was) a Chiropractic case, there was one teensy little problem…I don’t adjust kids or animals, only adults.  So we started calling around until we found a great DC who not only adjusted dogs, he had quite a reputation for adjusting circus animals including elephants.  He stayed late to see us (we had to drive an hour and a half) and was most accommodating.  He adjusted Kuma with an Integrator or Activator type of instrument and it looked so ‘easy and insignificant’ to bring about a change in an animal that was in such intense agony.  Immediately after his first adjustment, there was a calming of his body and he started to breathe instead of pant.  You could see his body relax with those few ‘clicks’ of the instrument and he licked the face of the ‘miracle worker’ DC.

 

A few more visits to the ‘miracle worker’ DC and Kuma was in high spirits and being his old pain in the a** self.  Chewing things, wanting you to take him on an adventure, and guarding the house and the kids.  Not all people saw this as a miracle.  Our ‘grouchy’ neighbor told us that taking our dog to a DC was a crime and that some people didn’t deserve to be pet owners.  It reminded me of the feeling when people say they don’t ‘believe’ in Chiropractic.  Sometimes you get angry, other times you attempt to prove it, but what’s best is letting people have their own beliefs and working on the people who want to hear what you want to say.  Thank goodness for DC’s who don’t listen to other’s beliefs about health.

Are you an Akita Chiropractor?

Credit for these images goes to: http://dogtime.com/dog-breeds/akita, http://newallwallpaper.blogspot.com/2013/01/akita-puppies-hd-wallpapers-2013.html, http://www.justdogbreeds.com/akita.html, http://petzoo.weebly.com/akita.html