Winston, male dog, non-castrated, French Bulldog, 6YO

He presented to me about 2 years ago with a back leg’s weakness and urinary incontinence. His Chinese diagnosis was a Kidney Qi Deficiency with some yin deficiency too that I have been treating every 2 weeks with electroacupuncture and Chinese herbal remedies. Winston goes to hydrotherapy on a regular basis.

Winston is a very nice and gentle dog who cares a lot about his owner. He had spinal surgery around 2 years ago now, to treat a spinal arachnoid diverticulum. After that his recovery was good but never complete, he never went back to how he was before the lesion. The prognosis after those surgeries is guarded.

His right posterior limb is weak and has lost neurological response. He can walk and run but sometimes he collapses. He has got some urinary incontinence and even sometimes faecal accidents occur.

With electroacupuncture every 2 weeks we manage to control the incontinence and we try to improve the weakness of the hind part of the body. We alternate hydrotherapy with my sessions and encourage the owner to walk him daily, to keep those muscles working.

I keep Winston on a formula of Chinese Herbs to treat his hindquarters weakness, he has some with his food daily.

Based on the 5 Elements Theory, Winston is a water with kidney deficiency,  a normal organ to be affected within that element. Kidney of course is related with bladder, but from a Chinese Medicine point of view the kidney takes care of the bone too.

In my physical exam I never found pain on Winston to be in any pain, just a weakness that doesn’t progress but improves very little every day.

My basic acupuncture treatment for him includes performance points, bl60/kid3, bl54, bl40, bl23. Sometimes I use CV1 and GV1.

I use laser along SP channel.

In general, I do electroacupuncture for 15min. I leave the dry needles in for 20-25min.

Winston always starts off very excited to see me and emotion of a visitor at home but as soon as I start with some needles he settles and relaxes for the whole treatment.

When I start to remove the needles because I have finished, he looks at me as if to say “don’t stop I want more!”.