Acupuncture — is it a pet's best friend?

IDAHO FALLS — Saying Connie Bowcutt cares about her horses is like calling Mother Teresa humble.

So when her 13-year-old horse, Jett, tore his groin six years ago while backing out of his trailer, Bowcutt was concerned.

"He did quite a bit of damage to himself," she said. "I knew I had 24 to 48 hours (to seek treatment) before he was severely lame."

Enter Jerry Gardner, an Idaho Falls-based acupuncturist who treats cats, dogs and horses in addition to his human clientele. Over the course of several treatment sessions, Jett's muscles unknotted and eventually healed.

Now, Bowcutt swears by Gardner's work and uses him to treat the 11 horses and two mules she owns, in addition to herself, whenever maladies arise.

"Western medicine's approach to pain is cutting it out or giving you a pill," Gardner said. "We can do things with pain that they can't deal with very well. A lot of times I can prevent unnecessary surgeries, too."

Although veterinarians in the United States have practiced acupuncture since President Nixon's groundbreaking trip to China in the 1970s, the demand for acupuncture services has increased over the past decade.

In fact, Gardner now performs his services on 10 to 15 animals per weekend, in addition to the human clients he works on four days a week — a substantial increase from the 10 clients per week, human or otherwise, he started out with.

Pet owners who struggle to get their animals into carriers for a trip to a vet, or even take a pill, might be skeptical that their pets would sit still while someone sticks needles in their flesh.

Yet most animals are very tolerant of acupuncture, said Gardner, who runs an Alternative Health Clinic with his wife, Chris.

Often, animals fall asleep in the midst of a treatment session, which generally lasts 30 minutes to an hour.

The basic principles of acupuncture, which can trace its roots back more than 3,000 years, are the same in animals as with humans.

Traditional Chinese medicine says disease is the result of a blockage in energy flow along pathways in the body called meridians. Inserting needles into these pathways unblocks the energy — called qi (pronounced "chee") — and restores health.

Vets most commonly apply acupuncture to cats, dogs, cows and horses, but they also can treat birds, ferrets and rabbits.