



Because my dog likes to chase his tail, I suspect that he has a spine that is out of whack.

It stands to reason. As an experiment, just get down on all fours, pretend you have a tail and try to chase it. Not just once but a dozen times.

If you do this often enough, you will wind up with a back that has cricks, creaks, aches and pains.

But as a human being, you have resources to cure your aching back--possibly a chiropractor.

In my tail-chasing dog's case, such treatment is not available. So some day, I could have a mutt that walks sideways, limps or moans from back pains.

That is because we have a strange law in this state that makes it illegal for a chiropractor to treat animals.

I discovered this in talking to Dr. Daniel Kamen of Buffalo Grove, a chiropractor who is expert in treating animal ailments.

He is one of the few chiropractors who can claim to have adjusted the spines of a giraffe, lions, ferrets, cows, rabbits, dogs and cats.

The giraffe was his toughest challenge since he had to climb an 11-foot ladder to do the job, the giraffe was unpleasant and, as a result, he later had to have his own spine adjusted.

"I've done rabbits. I had a patient who had a rabbit that was really lame. A veterinarian gave it medication and wanted to do surgery. But the owner brought it to me, and it had only one vertebra that needed adjustment. I did it and it was a perky bunny again.

"Horses are easy because most are already trained. Horses, especially racehorses, get athletic injuries. They also throw their lower back out often because people get on them on the left side and it drags the left side of their back down. They have neck problems from people tugging the reins.

"For dogs, it's the choke collar that does it. Our necks are the same as a dog's. Imagine if someone had a chain around your neck and they yanked it 30 times a day. You'd take them to court. Dogs can't tell a person to cut it out."

For all his expertise on animal ailments, you won't find even a gerbil in Kamen's waiting room.

"My main practice is with people. But I teach a nationwide seminar to chiropractors, veterinarians and laymen on the adjusting techniques.

"But the veterinarians don't like that. So the Illinois Department of Professional Regulation visited my office, and they were upset that I treated animals and they warned me against it.

"I said, `Look, if you give me trouble, I'll write a book and get it published so everyone can know how to do this.'

"So the veterinarians are screaming. More recently, an investigator came to my office looking for animals. I never bring animals to my human office. But they told me that if I continue practicing on animals, I would get a fine or have my license suspended. So now I just teach seminars. And I'm forced to demonstrate on a stuffed dog. I don't do the seminars in Illinois. I've had them in 20 other states.

"It's sad that the average person can get a hunting license and shoot a deer's head off, but I can't adjust an animal's spine.

"I've been a chiropractor for 15 years. I started working with animals when I was in college. I happened to hear a yelp coming out of a professor's office and I went in and he was doing a dog.

"So he took me out to a farm and we adjusted the cows. Cows are tough to adjust because they stand in the stalls so much and don't move around and their spines get really stiff.

"Because of this stupid law, I told the inspectors that they left me no choice but to write a book so people could learn to adjust their own animals.

"So I did. The book came out a few weeks ago, and it's called `The Well-Adjusted Dog: Canine Chiropractic Methods You Can Do.' But you can use the methods on any mammal."

Tony Sanders, a spokesman for the Illinois Department of Professional Regulation, explained the conflict:

"It is out of the scope of a physician's practice to treat animals. Veterinarians are the only ones who can treat or manipulate animals. We have one case from 1993 that ended up with a chiropractor being indefinitely suspended for practicing on animals. Physicians, surgeons and chiropractors can only treat human ailments; veterinarians can only treat animals. That's the way the law is written in Illinois."

So if my tail-chasing mutt ends up being permanently shaped like a doughnut, I'll know who to blame.

Is there anything politicians don't goof up?

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