early on in my personal health qwest that has taken me from worshipping western medicine (being basically a bachelor of Science geek way back in college-way back)to realizing its inadequacies,my precious boxer girl doggie late in life stopped chasing birds and had pain in her back from a calcified spine.i fed her from birth the best raw diet you could do.anyway acupunture would really fire her up good.You cannot have a placebo effect on an animal unless you use some sort of reward.Believe me the dog didn't like the acu treatment,it was no reward.But it sure worked.It routinely works on people that don't believe in it.More proof.i have seen it many times.