Pets on pins and needles

Molly Masland

SEATTLE - Mella the golden retriever was an itchy dog — a very itchy dog. Each night she would stay awake frantically scratching at the burning sores and scaly skin covering her body. As her allergies grew worse, the soft skin on her belly turned black with scabs and the tissue between her toes grew red and inflamed. Eventually much of her fur had to be shaved off.

“She was a disaster,” says Pat Moberly, Mella’s owner. Originally bred to become a guide dog for people with disabilities, Mella had to drop out of the training program when the severity of her skin allergies became apparent.

Moberly tried everything she could think of — conventional medications, changing the dog’s diet, using different bedding and even avoiding grasses — but nothing stopped the endless itching. Nothing, that is, until she took Mella to see Dr. Donna Kelleher, a Seattle veterinarian trained in animal acupuncture and other forms of complementary medicine.

Puppy or pincushion?
Like Mella, many of Kelleher’s patients come to see her after conventional medical treatments have failed. Author of “The Last Chance Dog,” Kelleher specializes in treating animals with chronic diseases, some of which are close to being put down by the time they arrive for an appointment. She has done acupuncture on everything from a horse to a bird — even a pet snake that was slammed in a drawer and suffered spinal injuries.

Katie Cannon / MSNBC.com Mella receives an examination from Dr. Donna Kelleher.

As I drove to Kelleher’s office on a rainy August morning, I wondered about the logistics of performing acupuncture on animals. How does one stick a large dog with numerous needles and then make it sit still for 20 minutes? And how many people would it take to hold down a struggling golden retriever while a vet put pins in its paws and ears?

Fortunately the situation turned out to be a little more serene for everyone involved. Inside Kelleher’s office, filled with jars of Chinese herbs and charts showing acupuncture points on various animals, the only excitement was Mella bounding around the small room, happily wagging her tail.

As soon as Kelleher began the acupuncture treatment, the dog settled down on the floor and hardly seemed to notice the needles that were being inserted at points all over her body — inside her hind legs, on her back, shoulders, behind her ears and in her paws. Instead of becoming agitated or trying to pull out the needles, Mella conked out, her head in Moberly’s lap. For the next 20 minutes, she lay there panting lightly and occasionally yawning, her eyes glazed over in a doggy trance.

Was Mella a mutant pooch — a hound into sadomasochism? Or, this being her seventh acupuncture appointment, maybe she was just used to all this by now. But after watching two other less-experienced dogs undergo a similar treatment — neither of which seemed to care much about the needles either — Mella’s behavior didn’t seem so unusual.

And, the dog does seem to have gotten better. Months after the acupuncture began, her sores have nearly disappeared, she’s not scratching much, and the skin on her belly and toes has returned to normal, says Moberly.

“The improvement has been incredible. I really feel like I got my Mella-girl back.”

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