ALTERNATIVE HEALTH FOR YOUR PET - An Interview with Dr. Caroline Bartley
(www.cherrycreeknorthchiro.com)
See Biography below

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By Ellen Hughes

SOE:  When did you first get interested in alternative health for animals? 
 
I started using alternative health on animals in 2001 when our 3-year-old black Lab (Shadow) was diagnosed with degenerative spinal myelopathy.   He wouldn’t jump up in the car and he always waited for me to pick him up. A trip to vet revealed his lower lumbars were fused together and he was losing use of his back legs. We believe he twisted his back going down some steep stairs with snow.  The injury got arthritic and started fusing.  The diagnosis was degenerative spinal myelopathy.  He was given about 3 months before the pain and his health would necessitate his demise.  Since he was only 3 years old, I felt there had to be another option.
 
I had received information in the mail from Dr. Inman about an animal chiropractic type course and  thought, “I’m going to try it.”  So that is what I did.  Being a chiropractor, I know the power of the innate to heal.  It’s just amazing what the body can do.  So I took the course and applied VOM, (Veterinary Orthopedic Manipulation) and cold laser to treat cc.

SOE:  Who can perform VOM?

As of the beginning of 2010, chiropractors and vets with active state licenses and who have been trained in a recognized program can treat animals.  There are requirements for annual continuing education credits, also.  A person treating an animal outside the current legislation, will be fined and be subject to a prison sentence.

SOE:   How long did it take VOM to work? 
 
Shadow showed immediate improvement in mobility, function and decrease of pain.  When you have a condition or a situation like his, it is never going to totally heal.  It is a maintenance situation once the condition has been healed as much as possible .  VOM is actually a series of adjustments.  The patient is treated on a schedule, Days 1, 7, 14, 21 and 28. With an injury or chronic condition, the treatment consists initially of these 5 visits.  It is one month.  If there is a neurological problem, then laser is recommended in addition to and in between VOM.
 
You asked why I incorporated this into my practice.  I do this because I love animals.  I might get bit, kicked or scratched, but you know what?  They love what you do.  They appreciate it.  And I have never had a problem with an animal.  Never.
 
SOE:  Do you work on all sizes of animals?
 
Yes, I do horses.  I even had a pot bellied pig.  And let’s see.  I have done bunnies.  I have done pigs, I have done cats, horses and, of course, dogs.  Seeing the success of the animals, how could I not do it?  It is extremely rewarding.
 
SOE:  Was it helping them more than other techniques? 
 
Yes.  VOM is even recognized by the German Shepherd Dog Club of America. It is useful in treating and preventing hip problems.  By correcting the neuronal component as well as structure, the gait, the animal’s disposition, etc. is affected and improved. It is used for preventative purposes as well as treatment. I would recommend this for pet owners.  For instance, you go to the dentist to get your teeth cleaned twice a year. You don’t wait to get a cavity.  In doing VOM, it locates all the subluxations, all the neuronal subluxations, whether they are symptoms or not, and will correct them.  When you are looking at organ dysfunction, even before a problem develops and shows up on lab work, subluxations are located, identified and corrected.
 
SOE: So you deal with them before they get worse?
 
Right, correct.  People should do that, too.
 
SOE:  It’s preventative medicine. 
 
It’s a corrective type thing and so you are preventing a disease from progressing.  There is a problem there but you are preventing it from forming. 
 
SOE:  What is VOM?
 
It’s not veterinary medicine.  It’s not chiropractic.  It exists in that gray area between them.  It’s not like manually adjusting like a chiropractor would do on a person.  My reflex is not faster than an animal’s reflex.  It’s never going to be.  You can never tell an animal to “relax while I do this.”  I think that in relation to heavy manually adjusting on an animal, this is a lot more effective.  A lot safer.  There are no side effects at all.  Zero. Zip. 
 
SOE:  So they allow you to do this? 
 
Oh, yes.  For example, my daughter’s cat, Kashmere would not allow anyone to pet her on the back about 2-3 inches from the tail as she would bite at you.  Obviously because it was a sensitive area.  So I told my daughter, well, let’s adjust her.  Let’s do the VOM.  And she goes, “Well, Mom, is this going to be like giving her a bath?”  And I said, “I don’t think so.”  I worked on her.  What you look for when you are doing the VOM, is a read.  A pathological read, it’s that involuntary jerk reflex.  So I went down her back and used an instrument that is similar to an activator (see picture of Acuspark in Blog (LINK HERE TO BLOG), but it’s not an activator.  I have an electronic instrument and I go to that spot and I got a serious read.  She kind of looked at me like “What are you doing?”  From then on, whenever I would go to adjust the kids, Shadow and my shepherd, the cat would come up and sit up and wait for her turn.  And they love it.  They absolutely love it. 
 
It’s very gentle.
 
SOE:   Is this really new?
 
Dr. Inman is a veterinarian surgeon who developing VOM.  Directly from Dr. Inman’s website (http://www.vomtech.com/drbill.htm)  “VOM was developed by William L. Inman BS, BS, DVM, CVCP, in Seattle, WA, in Dr. Inman's clinical practice from July of 1982 to 1996. It continues to be enhanced and perfected due to the input of over 6700 practitioners worldwide who have taken the VOM Technology training.  
 
SOE:  And there is no question that it is healthy?
 
Oh, there is none.  It has over 90% success rate.  But even if it doesn’t “fix” something, there is no harm done.  “VOM locates neuronal subluxations - the area of non-communication with the brain.  It reduces them and confirms the reduction. And it has a built-in rescheduling protocol that inserts the patient on a self-regulating readjustment interval. 
 
SOE:  Can you tell how many meridians are in an animal?  Is it always the same?
 
You know, there are so many different thoughts on that.  One source says this and another says.  They are all very similar.
 
Also, I am a Reiki master /teacher. I teach animal Reiki as well as ‘people’ Reiki.  If somebody has an animal with a condition they would want to work on their animal, then I attune them to at least Level 1 Reiki.  They can work on themselves and their family.  I also will Reiki an animal that is ill, that is going to be passing over.

SOE:  Get rid of being afraid of dying?
 
Well, it’s to accompany them as they go over.  And if an animal is not traumatized when they pass, it is so much easier for them to pass over, just like with people.   That is my belief.
 
Several of my patients I have received, were referred to me by Val Parks. Every time she has referred somebody to me, she has been correct in determining the animal’s condition.  I never would have thought that someone could have a gift such as hers.   Then with Shadow, toward the end did go down in the rear, I called her and asked for an appointment. And I said, “Do I come in there?” And she said, “Oh, I do this over the phone.”  She knew absolutely nothing about my animals, about my household, nothing.  That’s another story.  I can’t even begin to tell you…just incredible.   
 
SOE:  What did she do over the phone?
 
I wanted to get him a cart because he was going down.  And he is like, I don’t want that.
 
SOE:  A cart?
 
For his rear legs since he was becoming paralyzed. And he didn’t want that and I didn’t want to let him go.  And Val said, “Well, you have another dog in the house that is like, she is with him with her arms around his shoulders.”  My shepherd had quit sleeping by my bed and was with Shadow wherever he went.  How does she know that?  She didn’t even know that there was another dog in the house.  And she said that he was already sleeping a lot.  And that he had several animal guides around him. 

Then she told me, because she talked to him, she said that now that he knows that I know what he wants, he may show a side of improvement, but not take that [as a sign] he wants to stay.  It’s just that he’s not depressed anymore.  He had not walked in two days.  After our session, he woke up, looked at me, got up and walked down the hall.  I asked her about the cart when that happened and her response was that there was something like fire on the outside of his aura and something else would be manifesting.  He was not going to be here for long.  It was 3 days.  He went downhill very quickly.
 
SOE:  But he got up and walked?
 
And walked to the stairs and looked at me like, “Okay, come on, Mom.”
 
Then I was referred Cocoa, who is a teacup poodle.  She was a little puppy you could hold in your hand. She was the runt of the litter.  And it got to where she was just in so much pain, she was shaking.  She couldn’t eat.  You couldn’t pick her up.  She was crying all the time.  And the vet didn’t know what to do.  X-rays and all sorts of testing had been performed.  Nothing was found wrong with her.  They were getting ready to put the dog down and Val suggested to the owner to come see me.  This was when I just started doing it (VOM) and I was like, “Well, I know it can’t hurt.”  This case turned out well as the puppy had a rotated upper cervical vertebra that when corrected, took her out of pain. I adjusted Cocoa using the protocol.  I did two or three months follow-up, with a visit once a month.  She was fine.   Since I am not a veterinarian, I work with vets.  I even call and discuss cases with Dr. Inman.
 
SOE:  You, first and foremost, are a people chiropractor.
 
Yes.  I do functional medicine, spinal adjusting and spinal decompression (incorporating cold laser) for people and do VOM/cold laser on animals. 
 
SOE:  After the first time you worked on her, what happened? 
 
She was out of pain.  She could eat and you could pick her up.  And she wasn’t quivering and screaming.  She got better and better and better.
 
Another case was Katie.  Katie was about 9 months old.  Her owners couldn’t take her for a ride as she would get car sick.  The owner was my accountant and knew I worked on animals.  And she said, “Do you think this would help?”  And I said, “Let’s try it.”  And after her series, she has never been carsick again. 
 
And then there was a basset hound with a blown disk in the neck.  Daisy was down for 5 days and on a morphine drip at the emergency room vet. This was a 15-year-old basset hound.  The vet wanted to do surgery.  Surgery on a 15-year-old dog would be questionable whether it survive the surgery and there is the financial aspect, approximately $5,000.  Now to do a cervical surgery, if the dog makes it through surgery, you don’t know if it’s going to be a successful surgery after that.  If the dog makes it through, if it’s successful, the success rate is between 6 and 8 months.  Okay?  And then they have to go back in and fuse above it and below it again because of where it’s located.  I would not call surgery a good alternative.  So, again, Val referred this lady to me.  On Sunday night I get this hysterical phone call from this poor lady. I explained, “You have to get the veterinarian to approve me to come in to work on the dog.”  And so she did.  I went in and talked to the vet.  And he went, well what is VOM?  And I was telling him what it was and he started to walk out of the room. I said, “No, you can’t go.  You have to stand here while I treat this animal in your clinic.” 
 
SOE:  Since it was in his clinic, he had to be there? 
 
Yes, I wanted him to be present since he was obviously skeptical.  I work in conjunction with different vets.  Anyway, I did the VOM treatment.  And here, Daisy is just laying there, right? For 5 days, morphine drip, no food, no water.  They had an IV in her to hydrate her.  I didn’t know what was going to happen.  I did the VOM procedure.  I said with the symptoms that the dog has, I think it’s probably C-6, C-7, the disks.  You know, you start talking about MRIs, CT scan, you know, you are talking big bucks.  It’s not feasible.  And so I got to that area and Daisy gave a little “woof”!  I finished the initial pass, and as I went down the second, Daisy stood up, wagged her tail, lifted up her head and looked at her mom and walked over to the food bowl.
 
SOE:  Did Daisy make a believer out of the vet?
 
Well, I heard later that he told other vets about it.  But that was Daisy.  I also treated a Weimaraner, that had Wobblers disease.
 
SOE: Wobblers?
 
Wobblers, yes.  You know the cartoons with the dog on ice, with the legs going everywhere?  That is what they look like when they have this condition.  It is so sad.  This one dog with wobblers would come to my office and he would just shake, and hardly have control over his legs.  He would also poop not knowing.  His brain and his body were just not connected because of the neck.  Working on him normalized his life.  His neck was still a very weak point in his body.  He had to be monitored so he wouldn’t rough house with the other dogs in the house.  A harness was used in place of a collar to remove stress from his neck.  He was not cured, but the quality of his life was improved.
 
SOE:  These examples you are giving, the problems seem to stem from around neck.  It is always around the neck?
 
No.  It can be anywhere, between the shoulder blades, mid back, that is the thoracic region.  Reads in that particular region relates to the organs.  You are looking at the liver, kidneys, heart, lungs, etc. function.
 
SOE:  And VOM works with any part of the body?
 
Oh, yes.  What you are doing is working on the neurological system.  That is where the laser comes into play.  The laser works at the cellular level of the mitochondria.
 
SOE:  How long have you been doing this? 
 
I have been doing VOM/cold laser since 2001.
 
SOE:  What methods you use in addition to VOM?
 
I use VOM, I use cold laser.  I often do some nutritional supplementation and I use homeopathy.  You don’t want animal by-products.  No by-products.  If you can, you want them off certain types of grains.  Dogs are carnivores.  They can develop allergies and auto immune condition.  Their health will deteriorate and their life expectancy will be shortened if they are not fed right.
 
SOE:  What about table scraps, meat table scraps?
 
They need a balanced diet specific for them.
 
There are some dry foods that are very good and that are complete.  You can actually buy raw food diets with the correct proportions of different vitamins and nutrients and omegas and all that stuff in there.  Go on the internet and look up “raw food diet”, there are a lot of different ones there. 
 
SOE:  What about the bones?
 
Bones should be uncooked.
 
SOE:  Do you work with specific animals or do all animals benefit from VOM?

I work with all animals, large and small.  Interestingly, areas that normally don’t show subluxations in dogs and cats are hot spots in horses.
 
Why VOM is so successful?  It’s a very objective science and it’s very easy.  Whether you have any clinical symptoms or not, you are going to get in there and you are going to reduce the neuro-subluxation. 
 
SOE:   What exactly is a subluxation? 
 
A subluxation would be a misalignment.  What we are looking for when we do the treatment, is the pathological reflex.  It’s like a knee jerk.  And so it’s either there or it’s not. When you get that, you determine the presence and the reduction of that neuro-subluxation. We are also looking at the neurology.  It’s either there or it’s not. 
 
SOE:  So 90% of the time the animal shows improvement in his/her condition using VOM?

That is what the statistics show.   A condition may not improve, but the technique does no harm.  What surgical technique can say that?  We can’t fix everything, but we can say there are no negative side effects. 
 
SOE:  There is no negative to it?
 
I don’t think there is ever a “0” because by doing the VOM, endorphins are released and the patient feels better. A particular issue may not be corrected because it has progressed where it is unable to heal, but VOM/laser can make them more comfortable.  I think it’s positive all the time. 
 
SOE:  How did you hear about it?
 
I got a postcard in the mail advertising Dr. Inman’s class.  I had received a couple of them before Shadow developed his problem. When he developed his problem, I thought, you know, I am going to find out about it.  And that’s what I did.
 
SOE:  You actually place your hands on the animals, correct?
 
I use an instrument, an adjusting instrument which has 5 different levels of force.  For example, the very light level is used on birds and cats with the highest level being used on horses.
 
SOE:  Is there a particular time or a telling sign by an animal that their owners should bring them to you?
 
If their animals have any kind of condition or the owner has any questions about their physical health or emotional health, I recommend they contact a VOM practitioner.  I recommend quarterly or semi-annual “tune-ups.”  That is just good care.  That, to me, is being a responsible pet owner.  It is an affordable way to take good care of your pet. 
 
SOE:  Going back to all these problems around the neck area, is it because they are running and jumping?
 
Look at puppies.  They tear across the yard.  Plow into one another. And they roll around.  And you think about Dachshunds with their little long bodies and they are jumping down steps or off sofas.  They are a small dog.  That’s why there are so many neck problems because they jump down and the front legs impact with the weight of their bodies behind them. 
 
Larger dogs jump into and out of SUVs.  Smaller breeds are up and down, up and down.  You know, off the furniture, beds, stairs.  How many people put their dog on the bed and the dog jumps down?   What about the cat laying on top of the refrigerator?  How does he/she get down? 
 
After our cat, Kashmere, was adjusted her, her attitude improved 100%. She wasn’t so cranky and became a much more pleasant pet.
 
SOE:   Do you think Siamese have problems because they seem to be high strung? 
 
There are traits that are inherent in different breeds of cats, as well dogs.  There are certain dogs that have tendencies, like Weimaraner, for developing Wobbler's disease.  My German shepherd has an autoimmune disease that is specific to shepherds and great danes.  In relation to hip problems in a dog, if their lower back is subluxated, the muscles that attach to the front of the femur head are going to be tight and put pressure on the hip joint.  With muscle spasms having this constant pull, there will be deterioration.  You are going to get a degenerative process. 
 
SOE:  Does VOM help that?
 
Oh, yes.  The subluxation is removed which is causing the spasm.  Utilizing the laser, the muscles will relax as well as improving the neurological connection.
 
SOE:  Thank you so much for your time, Dr. Bartley.  I’m sure animal lovers everywhere will find this information on VOM very helpful.  Just to recap – Veterinary Orthopedic Manipulation (VOM) is a healing technology that locates areas of the animal's nervous system that has fallen out of communication, and re-establishes neuronal communication and induces healing.  www.vomtech.com

Biography

Dr. Caroline Bartley is a licensed chiropractor and VOM-trained practitioner.  She received her training from Dr. William Inman DVM (the veterinarian surgeon developer of VOM).  She graduated from Parker College of Chiropractic in 1997. Prior to studying at the Chiropractic College, she attended the University of Southern Colorado where she obtained a B.S. in Biology with a minor in Chemistry. Dr. Bartley has been practicing for over 10 years in the Denver Metro area. Since she began practicing, Dr. Bartley has kept up to date on many continuing educational classes, ensuring that her patients receive the most comprehensive and advanced care in chiropractic, natural medicine and nutrition. Her C.E.U.s include Functional Endocrinology, Functional Blood Chemistry Analysis, Metabolic Assessments, Pain Management, Homeopathy and Improving Cellular Communication in Managing Chronic Illness. She also obtained her C.V.C.P. to include large and small animals on her days outside the office.  http://www.activehealthdenver.com