Animal Acupuncture Academy

• Withdrawing from the course with no further obligations.
• Continuing the course by choosing payment method 2 above. Your trial payment will be credited towards the single discounted prepayment.

What is the legality of practising acupuncture on animals if you aren't a veterinary surgeon?

These comments summarise our current understanding of the situation which of course may change at any time subject to the whim of the politicians.

In Australia and NZ there is no legal impediment to anyone performing acupuncture on animals for fee or reward. The only constraint we are aware of in Australia is that someone who is not a veterinary surgeon must not make a "veterinary diagnosis", and must not use the word "veterinary" with respect to his actions. Avoiding those words/claims takes one outside the orbit of the Veterinary Surgeons Acts.

In the UK, it seems that Veterinary Surgeons have assumed the sole right to insert needles into animals. However, we have noted that there are some human acupuncturists who are performing animal acupuncture "under the control of or by referral from,Veterinarians". There is no legislation to preclude anyone using laser acupuncture or acupressure on animals.

In the rest of the world, different countries and different states within those countries have different regulations. You should make inquiries for the regulations in any specific area of interest to you. A few states are quite restrictive but others are not.

You will need to see if any restrictions extend to cover laser acupuncture or acupressure on animals. Some people in other countries get around restrictions by practising "energy medicine" rather than "animal acupuncture".

We are sure that most of the Laser stimulators in use by owners and trainers in the USA are being used for stimulating acupuncture points!

Veterinary surgeon/acupuncturists and Medical/acupuncturistsdo have their own professional organisation but it excludes all others. These are the people who have learnt a peasants art and now want to restrict it to themselves as "guardians of all knowledge and expertise". It continues to be a source of annoyance to us that some veterinarians pursue this arrogant and restrictive line, and it is a source of great pleasure that some non-veterinarians are practising with excellent results, and without the benefit of a veterinary education. In fact our tutor, a veterinarian, received his initial acupuncture education from lay-persons and became a human acupuncturist for a brief period before transposing his knowledge to animals.

Does this course have the approval of various organisations such as the
Government Education Authorities, Veterinary Associations and the like?

The answer is obviously NO. There are three reasons for this.
(1) The course has not been in operation long enough to be assessed for any accreditation.
(2) The Veterinary Surgeons Boards in Australia have no jurisdiction over animal acupuncture. In fact they correctly deny that Acupuncture is an act of Veterinary Medicine.
(3) The only other acupuncture course is the IVAS course for vets promoted in the USA and even this is only "recognised" by IVAS. It has no official recognition or standing. Not even with AVMA or AAHA, and certainly not outside the USA..

We are a private, fully autonomous teaching institution that is not restricted in any way by organisational red tape. We have never sought any government funding, any bureaucratic direction or limitation, and we are not looking for any subsidy or hand-out. We intend to retain total control over course content and graduate standards, and will never compromise our vision for any bureaucrat's stamp of approval! Our standard will be the one, that in the future, others will be measured against.

Our mission is to share the knowledge of this peasant technology with everyone who wishes to learn to use it.

How do I know that you are not a fly-by-night rip-off artist?

As you have probably heard, there are only 2 sure things in this world, Death and Taxes. We can't control either but we have managed to be in business for about 35 years and have always paid our taxes, our debts, our staff and have never been in bankruptcy or other courts of Law. You are free to verify all of that should you wish to through the usual commercial checking facilities. We are happy to provide you with Directors and Commercial Entities names for this purpose.
So, while we cannot predict our death date, we expect to be around for many tomorrows, over the next 15 years.
You can always opt for the installment program which gives you the opportunity to limit your exposure to any risk that you might have concerns about.
And if this does not convince you then you can always take advantage of our unique TRIAL OFFER. (see page 7 of the prospectus)
As far as animal acupuncture tuition is concerned, we consider ourselves as the leaders in this field in the Southern Hemisphere, having racked up around 30 years of involvement.
As to the quality of what we teach I suggest you look at the testimonials on our website.
I hope this will help you in your decision.

Why do I need to learn such a huge amount of stuff just to stick a few needles into my cat?

It would be possible to show any person how to treat a very specific condition on a certain species of animal on a once-only basis, without that person having any understanding whatsoever about what they were doing or why. This is not what this course is about.
Our graduates will be equipped to tackle most conditions in most animals from first principles. This means that our graduates should be able to think about almost any problem with which they are faced, and then by applying first principles, they should be able to design and implement a treatment schedule in almost any species even if they have not had specific training on that species. Even though our training will be biased towards the dog/cat/horse models, there is every expectation that you will be able to apply first principles to the treatment of elephant or kangaroo should that interest you.
We will endeavour to teach you to think rather than to just spoon feed you with a mountain of facts to be committed to memory. We will teach you how to look for solutions to problems rather than just provide stock answers for common problems.
To this end, it is necessary that you are equipped for the task.
In order to study this subject properly you will need to become proficient in the language of anatomy and the language of acupuncture. Now this is not as daunting as it might seem. There are few conventions that you must learn so that when you have something described to you it will be absolutely specific in meaning, and when you describe something to someone else there can be no room for misunderstanding.
For example to say that " I have examined the patient and she is lame" will mean absolutely nothing to anyone else. Compare that to the following statement: " I have examined the 3yo female Doberman named 'Tara' belonging to Joe Bloggs, and have determined that there is a lameness in the right hind leg. The lameness appears to be intermittent. At the time of examination, pain could not be demonstrated in any of the joints or muscles of this leg. The only abnormality seen was a laxity of the ligaments between the femur and the tibia, leading to a provisional diagnosis of cruciate ligament damage."
The second statement
(1) identifies the patient
(2) identifies the owner
(3) identifies which leg is involved
(4) narrows down the affected area to the knee joint.
(5) identifies a probable cause
(6) does not make an absolute diagnosis such as "cruciate ligament rupture" because that would be a guess. Absolute diagnosis would require confirmation of that suspicion with an endoscopic examination of the interior of the joint.

The examiner might then refer that patient on to you as an acupuncturist with the following recommendation: " Suggest you treat this patient using St35; Med Knee Eye; St36; Bl40; Bl11; Sp6; Sp5.....etc etc"

You as an acupuncturist will know exactly what the examining person meant you to do.You will know that St35 is an acupuncture point situated in the depression on the lateral side of the knee-cap, and between the the thigh-bone and the leg-bone(tibia). You will know exactly where this is on your own body and you will therefore be able to work out where it is on the dog's body, allowing for all the differences in structure between humans/animals and between different breeds of dogs. (Compare a Chihuahua to a St.Bernard for instance).

To do all of the above requires that you are comfortable with the terminology of anatomy, and with the terminology of acupuncture, and that you have a knowledge of how species/breeds differences can impact on the practice of acupuncture.

The first "lesson" directs your attention to the history of acupuncture.
The next few lessons will inform you about the importance of "energy" in acupuncture.
Then you will become acquainted with some of the basic teachings of TCM or Traditional Chinese Medicine.
After that, and up to about lesson 20 you will be exposed to the specifics of human and animal anatomy. We will deal with all the things that are important for you and will leave out what is not important. If you want to study anatomy more fully you can do that at another time and place.
The next approx 15 lessons will deal with the "nitty gritty" of acupuncture, the points and meridians in Humans. The human is the basic defining model of reference. It is also the easiest model to learn on because it is always with you, and you can be practising point finding at any time. Once again we will not be dealing with every point on every meridian, but will concentrate on the important ones.
Then we get to the "interesting stuff".....how to go about applying your knowledge to real conditions and on animals. Different types of problems require different approaches (different ways of thinking about problems) and these will be introduced at the appropriate time.
Different techniques are used at different times. Subjects such as "needling", "electro-acupuncture" and "lasers" are just some of the techniques explored.
Then there are many lessons relating to clinical practice in small animals and horses.
I know that we have kept the best bits till last, but to understand those "goodies" you will have to put in the effort which will enable you to understand it all.

Be assured that animal acupuncture is easy to learn providing you have the desire and the commitment plus the perserverance to conquer any small hiccoughs along the way.

Can you give me the names and contact details of your students ?

Privacy laws in this country prevent us from divulging any information about one client to any other without their consent. Penalties are in the millions of dollars!
Also, because of commercial considerations , it is policy to not put students in contact with one another until the final stages of the course. The reason hardly needs stating but you can appreciate that there is little we can do to prevent an existing student selling/giving our course content to others. To put a potential student in touch with an existing student provides the opportunity for unscrupulous persons to do just that.
Sorry.
We have already had to put in place anti-piracy methods to protect our website from hackers who were attempting to steal our lessons.
As you may know our Veterinarian Tutor has been directly involved in the training of more than 1000 veterinarians in the basic techniques of animal acupuncture, mainly in Australia but also in NZ, UK and Belgium.
The correspondence course we are offering is a relatively new product, but already we have students in Australia, New Zealand, and the USA.
One of our students is a veterinary surgeon who has opted to do the full course to brush up on human anatomy/physiology.

I am a human acupuncturist. How does "my" course differ from the "full" course?

As an acupuncturist you should already be proficient in the language of anatomy and physiology so this has been left out of your course. You will of course still have to learn the language of animal anatomy and how it may differ from human anatomy, so this has been left in.
You should be proficient in TCM principles so this has been left out of your course.
If you were presented with a patient suffering the following...
* weakness, tiredness or lassitude.
* runny faeces.
*nausea symptoms or even vomiting.
You would immediately suspect "symptoms of a spleen chi deficiency" and probably commence treatment to "strengthen spleen chi".

On the other hand, if you were presented with a dog showing weakness, vomiting and inappetance you should also consider a diagnosis of paralysis tick and eliminate that from your differential diagnosis. Upon finding a tick you should recognise your veterinarian's area of expertise and immediately refer the case to a vet.

You might have a colleague consult with you about a patient that he has been treating for a knee problem . He asks for your opinion on his treatment which entailed needling St35; Med Knee Eye; St36; Bl40; Bl11; Sp6; Sp5.....etc etc"

You as an animal-acupuncturist will know exactly what the other person meant. You will know that St35 is an acupuncture point situated in the depression on the lateral side of the knee-cap, and between the thigh-bone and the leg-bone(tibia). You will know exactly where this is on your own body and you will therefore be able to work out where it is on the dog's body, allowing for all the differences in structure between humans/animals and between different breeds of dogs. (Compare a Chihuahua to a St.Bernard for instance).

To do all of the above requires that you are comfortable with the terminology of anatomy and physiology and with the terminology of acupuncture, and that you have a knowledge of how species/breeds differences can impact on the practice of acupuncture. If you elect to pursue this course you are not required to complete some of the lessons of the full course. You may however elect to complete the additional lessons for revision purposes at no additional cost. Support for these additional lessons in not provided unless it is purchased on a per lesson basis.

I am a veterinarian. How does "my" course differ from the "full" course?

You will become acquainted with some of the basic teachings of TCM or Traditional Chinese Medicine.
We will deal with all the things that are important for you and will leave out what is not important. If you want to brush up your anatomy you can always purchase additional lessons.
We will be omitting lessons 8 through 26 which contain stuff that you as a veterinarian should be comfortable with. If you elect to pursue this course you are not required to complete some of the lessons of the full course. You may however elect to complete the additional lessons for revision purposes at no additional cost. Support for these additional lessons in not provided unless it is purchased on a per lesson basis.

Do you have a list of lessons that I can look at?

To view our List of Lessons for the 3 courses go to:-

http://www.animal-acupuncture.com/LessonNumbering.htm

Can I have a look at some of the tuition material?

You might like to have a look at a sample from the CDRom interactive teaching modules for the horse and dog. The links below will take a little while to load from the web, but they will load almost instantaneously from the CD which we supply to students as part of the course.
These pix are taken from the "interactives" which are delivered as part of Lessons #61 & #105. The "interactives" if printed out would occupy nearly 1000 pages of similar high quality resource material.
Notice the clarity and precision of the pictures.
Then compare this with anything else you may have seen.
I'm sure that our course will exceed your expectations.

http://www.animal-acupuncture.com/ST01.htm

http://www.animal-acupuncture.com/LiaoPoints.htm

http://www.animal-acupuncture.com/Haohoy.htm

http://www.animal-acupuncture.com/BL15.htm

http://www.animal-acupuncture.com/BL67.htm

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