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Acupuncture for the 4-legged patient?

Veterinarian Trish Kallenbach offers alternative therapies for ailing pooches, including chiropractics, homeopathy, herbal supplements and nutritional counseling.

By COLLEEN JENKINS
Published July 17, 2004

	[Times photos: Ted McLaren] Polly, a Rhodesian Ridgeback and Labrador mix, waits patiently as Dr. Trish Kallenbach examines her skin. Owner Brett Teitelman had brought Polly in for a skin condition that traditional medicine was unable to cure. Kallenback prescribed a diet that includes human organic yogurt and baths with lavender and tea tree oil.

	Dr. Kallenbach uses a machine called an Arthostim on Peaches, a longhaired dachshund that was once paralyzed. Chiropractors use the machine to stimulate nerves to release muscle spasms.
	Dr. Trish Kallenbach, left, chooses a combination of enzymes and vitamin supplements for Dar, a 2-year old golden retriever owned by Ellen Pavik. Kallenbach chose hollistic medicine after a 1997 conference in California.

HOMOSASSA - The dog days of summer aren't the happiest time for Ellie Mae.

Though the drooping jowls of her face give her a permanent frown, it's during the humid, flea-infested months of June through August that she battles an irritating skin infection no amount of scratching her chestnut brown and black coat can quench.

So each summer, Roy and Kay Routh dutifully take their imposing bloodhound to a veterinarian, hoping for a remedy that will soothe their forlorn pet. The results have been the same: an armful of antibiotics and a guarantee that the next summer likely will bring the same.

Like a mother searching for something more for her child, Kay Routh knew there had to be a better way.

From her antique wooden chair in her cozy Homosassa clinic, Dr. Trish Kallenbach assured the Rouths Thursday afternoon that there was. But the treatment would include more lavender and tea tree oil than conventional prescription medicines, and they might as well throw out Ellie Mae's current brand of dog food. If the couple was interested, chiropractic work and massage could follow.

This pooch was on the verge of a total body makeover.

The Midway Animal Alternative & Complementary Clinic sits on the edge of U.S. 19, just south of the multidoctor practice of Midway Animal Hospital. Until about two years ago, Kallenbach, 38, was one of the veteran doctors at the traditional Midway Animal Hospital, having begun her professional life there after graduating from the University of Florida's veterinary school.

She and her colleagues lovingly treated the critters that came through their door. Yet there was a frustration, she says, because conventional veterinary medicine provides little remedy for many diagnoses other than invasive surgeries or strong antibiotics.

Telling a pet owner there wasn't much that could be done for Spot or Garfield wasn't very satisfying, Kallenbach said.

"You are stuck with some diagnoses," she said.

In 1997, Kallenbach learned of a seminar for veterinary orthopedic manipulation, basically chiropractics for animals. She decided to try it out despite her doubt of the benefits of chiropractics on humans, let alone pets.

She remembers traveling to California and sitting in the back of the class with her arms crossed in skepticism.

"I was not at all alternatively minded," she said, noting she had never been to a chiropractor herself.

But by the end of the four-day conference, Kallenbach had a list of clients that she wanted to recommend the therapy to. She began incorporating the chiropractic techniques into her conventional therapies at Midway Animal Hospital.

In September 2002, she opened what remains the only full-service alternative veterinary clinic in Citrus County and one of few in Florida. Her services read like those offered at luxury spas: chiropractics, homeopathy, acupuncture, herbal supplements and nutritional counseling.

Except it's all for pets.

"Your head's got to be on straight, and your butt's got to be on straight. If they're not, that's why they come in the door," Kallenbach says of the animals that come to her clinic.

Soon after Ellie Mae swaggered through Kallenbach's clinic for her first appointment Thursday, the doctor was on her knees figuring out which services the itchy, 3-year-old bloodhound would need.

The examination didn't look particularly alternative. The bespectacled veterinarian began with a regular checkup, rubbing her hands around the animal's belly to determine the health of her organs.

Next came the Chinese pulse and tongue test. Ellie Mae's tongue apparently was a little darker than it should be. And though everyone in the room got doused with saliva when the bloodhound shook her head, the saliva's texture was too pasty for Kallenbach's liking.

"She doesn't have any saliva on her tongue, and she should," Kallenbach told the Rouths. "It should be shiny."

The likely culprit was the grain-based dog food Ellie Mae and most canines are fed. Dogs really need a heavily meat-based diet, Kallenbach says, but most standard dog foods are anything but.

That's why nearly every dog and cat that comes through Kallenbach's door is prescribed a diet overhaul, one that includes organic pet food, supplemental enzymes to better facilitate digestion and some colloidal silver to combat bacteria overgrowth.

The Rouths learned about the need for a meat-based diet when they made the appointment for Ellie Mae, so they already had made a trip to a health food store for their dog.

"Now she's on salmon and bison," Kay Routh said.

"She ate better than I did this week," Roy Routh chortled.

Kallenbach warned they needed to observe Ellie Mae's feces to make sure she was digesting the more expensive food properly.

Otherwise, she said, "it's expensive poop."

For an hour - the time Kallenbach allots to see each patient - the Hernando couple listened as the veterinarian explained the scientific reasons why she feels a diet change and holistic approach to treatment provide better results than conventional medicine. The lesson was somewhat dull and lacked the eccentric propaganda some people might expect for a person who practices "alternative" medicine.

Kallenbach is careful to note that she is not opposed to conventional veterinary medicine or traditional antibiotics, though she has prescribed such medication only once in the past two years.

She believes finding and treating the cause of an animal's ailment paves the way for a healthier pet in general. With conventional medicine, you end up treating the ailment only, and it comes back once the antibiotics wear off, she said.

"We're looking at the whole animal," she explained. "We're not fixing the animal. We're simply fixing imbalances in the body so the body can fix itself."

Brett Teitelman was fed up with veterinarians. For five years, he had taken Polly - the part-Labrador, part-Rhodesian Ridgeback he saved from a pound in the U.S. Virgin Islands - to area clinics in hopes that someone would cure her unsightly skin infection.

But until a month ago, nothing had worked. Teitelman was tired of long waits, tired of spending money for nothing in return.

"I just did not feel like she got any attention like she deserved," said the Crystal River man.

He figured Polly would just have to be "a gross skin dog." Then, Teitelman's wife heard about Kallenbach. They decided to give her a try, having benefited themselves in the past from chiropractic care.

Thanks to a new diet, which includes human organic yogurt, and cooling baths of colloidal silver, lavender, tea tree oil and calendula, most of the scabs that covered Polly's honey-colored fur have healed.

"All I did was say, "Let's get rid of the problems I think are creating the infection,' " Kallenbach said.

Teitelman is delighted.

"It's really been a remarkable change already," he said.

- Colleen Jenkins can be reached at 860-7303 or cjenkins@sptimes.com

[Last modified July 17, 2004, 01:00:37]