Acupuncture can be an effective pain relief treatment for dogs. Our furbaby Sunny was a patient and we could tell by his behaviour that these treatments were effective.
Sundog the Troublemaker Maltese was the faithful sidekick of CoCo the Handsome Maltese. He suffered from loose knee joints. As he grew older, this became very painful to him. To reduce the pain, he would try to walk without bending his hind legs and he stopped jumping on the furniture. He'd just wait for us to put him on and off the couch to nap. His back muscles were so tense they were as hard as a rock.
We were referred to a veterinarian trained in acupuncture. The vet instituted a course of 20-minute acupuncture sessions. Sundog did not mind the treatments, other than his usual extreme discomfort at anyone touching his back legs when the needles were inserted. He would sit at the beginning of the session and eventually lay down. Our biggest concern was making sure he didn’t get too comfortable and roll over on his side to sleep while the needles were in!
Sundog started with weekly treatments and gradually extended the interval to six weeks. We noticed that he started to stiffen up again after about five weeks, so we settled on once every four weeks.
