Abby shares her home with her humans,Dr. Gregory Todd and Laura, his wife.
Sullivan began asking Todd questions
which seemed irrelevant to the problem at hand. “Questions such as how I perceived work, other complaints from which I might be suffering, and whether I was happy,” said Todd. “Then he asked if he might take my pulse. I acquiesced and he thoughtfully palpated one wrist and then the other. Then he examined my tongue. When he completed the process, he sat across from me at his desk and smiled.” Dr. Sullivan began describing things
about Todd that anyone just meeting him could not know. Things including his eat- ing and sleeping habits. “When I would wake up – why I would wake up – and quite frankly, how certain situations in life were perceived by me. I was flabbergasted that anyone could know so much from taking a pulse and looking at my tongue,” said Todd, who was hooked, and ready for his first treatment. “Every therapy should have some
expectation of results,” Dr. Sullivan told his new patient. “If we fail to achieve percepti- ble results within 30 days, then acupuncture was not the right tool, or perhaps I was not the right person to perform it.” “This man so believed in his medicine
that he was willing to give it an ultima- tum. Thirty days or else. Remarkable. It’s something which would become a staple for me as a practitioner for the rest of my life,” said Dr. Todd.
PATIENT. FRIEND. STUDENT. COLLEAGUE. About four weeks after his initial treat- ment with Dr. Sullivan, Dr. Todd was presented with a cat suffering from hind limb paresis and in deep pain. “We tried conventional therapy for several days with no improvement. I recommended an MRI, but this was not an option for the owners,” said Dr. Todd. Feeling there must be something
more he could do, he asked Dr. Sullivan about it, late one evening, “I have this funny proposition for you. Wouldn’t you like to treat this mean cat at night, after your long workday, at my office, for free? I’ll anesthetize the cat because I’m sure no one can put needles into an awake cat, and more good news; it has to be for free because I don’t want you to be in trouble with the board of Veterinary Medicine and I’m not sure it’s legal.” Dr. Sullivan stopped by Dr. Todd’s
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office and treated the cat four times. After the second treatment, the cat was running around the cage. Flannel the cat never had a reoccurrence in the next three years that he remained Dr. Todd’s patient. “After I saw Flannel walk again, I
knew I needed to learn this amazing med- icine,” he said. “But, I didn’t know of any veterinarian who practiced acupuncture and was not aware of any organization that taught acupuncture. It was before the internet, so I wondered, where do I start?” Dr. Todd sat in Dr. Sullivan’s office and
asked him something that, at the time, he felt he had no right to ask. “Will you teach
AN ANCIENT APPROACH TO WELLNESS, TRADITIONAL CHINESE MEDICINE (TCM) originated in China thousands of years ago. TCM’s overall philosophy encompasses a broad range of approaches, including acupuncture, massage and dietary therapy, as well as the use of Chinese herbs. When its principles are applied to animal wellness, the discipline is called Traditional Chinese Veterinary Medicine (TCVM).
me Chinese medicine?” When he offered to pay Dr. Sullivan, the doctor just smiled at his patient who would now become his student. He handed Todd a book to read and told him to come back the next day. “When I returned, he had a written test for me to take and another book to read. My journey had begun,” said Dr. Todd. He continued to study with Dr.
Sullivan, who would give him more books to read. He would shadow his teacher while he treated patients. Typically, Dr. Todd would pulse one wrist and Dr. Sullivan the other. Then, they would switch and Dr. Sullivan would ask his student about the patient’s condition, etiology and treatment. Because Dr. Todd learned from a
human practitioner, he actually did things a little backwards. He learned the theory of TCVM and herbs before he learned needling and in 1993 began his TCVM practice. In 1994, Dr. Sullivan bought his student a gift. It was Allen Schoen’s first book, Veterinary Acupuncture: Ancient Art to Modern Medicine. Schoen is one of the
pioneers in veterinary acupuncture and natural therapies, developing and practic- ing them since 1981. In the back of Schoen’s book was an address for IVAS, the International Veterinary Acupuncture Society. Dr. Todd went on to complete the IVAS course and became certified as a Veterinary Acupuncturist in 1996.
Summer/Fall 2017 THE NEW BARKER 69
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