DOG-EARED with Lisa Davis EP #5: BOOK: Pressure Point Therapy for Pets. AUTHOR: Dr. Michael Pinkus

Lisa is joined by Dr. Michael Pinkus who is the author of Pressure Point Therapy for Pets: Become the MASTER of Your Pet's Health.

Lisa starts the show as she always does with "Does your dog do..." however this week there is a twist!  Instead of Lisa completing "does your dog do...", Dr. Pinkus does.  From there the two of them take a deep dive into the what, how, and benefits of pressure point therapy for your dog.  Dr. Pinkus also shares stories of his dogs and others that have had incredible experiences with pressure point therapy.  It is easy to learn and his book illustrates all of the pressure points on different size dogs as well as all of the different ailments it helps with.

Dr. Michael PInkus has been involved in Alternative Health for over three decades. As a chiropractor and nutritional expert, Dr. Pinkus has developed several health-related products and supplements. He has been a doctor for the US Olympic Team and attended the Olympic Games in Atlanta. Dr. Pinkus has authored several books and instructional videos and been a guest on hundreds of radio and TV interviews across the US and Canada. His PBS show has been airing for over five seasons. Dr. Pinkus developed the Pressure Point Therapy technique for humans and now for pets!

Transcript

54:30

Owner: Lisa Davis
SUMMARY KEYWORDS 
dog , point , pets , pressure , vet , pet , book , cat , benji , humans , thought , skin , technique , body , healing , pincus , treatment , charts , animal , put 

Lisa 
0:00
starting on January 11, Health power we'll be posting every Tuesday instead of every Tuesday and Thursday, on Thursdays starting on the 12th, you're gonna get dog eared with Lisa Davis, they write books about dogs, I interview them. So if you're a dog lover, I hope you will check it out. Tell your friends, tell your family also tell them about health power. So again, health power every Tuesday "DOG-EARED with Lisa Davis" every Thursday, hope you'll tune in.

Lisa 
0:37
I always start the show with Does your dog do such and such. So today, our wonderful guest is Dr. Michael Pincus, we're going to be talking about his incredible book, "Pressure Point Therapy for Pets:  Become the Master of your Pet's Health." And he is going to share that does your dog do.dot.dr Pincus go for it? And then we're gonna jump into your fabulous background and your wonderful book.

Dr. Pinkus
1:00
Okay, hey, Lisa. So does your dog look at you in a certain way? And you have to figure out what the dog is trying to say? Yes, you get the look. And you're not sure what it is. But it might not be the best look. It's not like, Oh, hey, it's dinnertime. It's not that type of look, the dog is looking at you and saying, I need something from you. I'm not and you and you're not sure what it is. You have to kind of do the guessing game. So hone in more on my on the subject of today, pressure point therapy for pets? Is the dog in pain, or they have some discomfort? Is there something that's bothering them physically? Maybe it's not pain, maybe it's some sort of sensation? Maybe they're having some emotional thing happening? Alright, so these are the these are the first what I call indicators that you have to start putting your healer hat on as your dog's master. And you know, if it's real severe, obviously, you're going to take him to the vet. Right, right. But most of the time, it's not most of the time. It's something that can be explained. But you have to find the reason why.

Lisa 
2:24
Yeah, I love that. And I just want to say the idea that I can help my dog at home. You know, my dog Benji, who has the arthritis that I could help him at home is so great. So that's why we're talking today about pressure point therapy for pet. Dr. Michael Pincus has been an avid pet owner for over 40 years he adapted his pressure point therapy technique for humans and dedicated this book to pet lovers all over the world and alternative health doctor for over three decades. Dr. Pincus, his radio show airs weekly across the US and Canada and his public television show has been watched by millions. Dr. Pincus, I have to have you on my other podcast on this platform health power. So we can talk about pressure point for humans. But today, it's all about the dogs. Welcome to "DOG-EARED with Lisa Davis."
3:11

Dr. Pinkus: 
Thank you, Lisa. Great to see you.

Lisa 
3:13
It's so nice to have you on so you right in the book, your wonderful book, pressure point therapy for pets, and we're gonna be focusing on the dogs of course, although if you have cats out there, this is for you, too. You write in the book:" Well, my first inkling that pets respond to touch, which subsequently led to this technique. pressure point for pets was when I was a child." Tell us about Pinkie.

Dr. Pinkus 
3:34
So Pinky, yes, Pinkie was my aunt and uncle's apricot poodle, just the cutest thing. And, and Uncle Len, World War Two vet just a great guy. He would have Pinky jump on his lap, and I must have been maybe 12 years old. And he says watch this. And he started like rubbing his neck and rubbing his ears and pinkie would just go into like he'd melt into a pool. And that really impinged on me like wow, this this animal quote unquote animal was responding to touch and love. And like, really, they do that. So that was that was my first impression. Like there's something there's something more to a dog than just the dog. It has. Yes.

Lisa
4:32
Right? Yeah, absolutely. Our dogs love us. We love them back. And if we see them in discomfort, we want to help but I think what was so great about this technique, and I want you to define what it is tell us about it, is that it's about preventative care. Now I have a master's in public health. I'm all about prevention. And as you write so aptly in the book, we live in a society where sick care is the model and that paradigm has got to shift so I just threw a bunch at you but to talk to us about pressure, what it is. And then let's talk about how we got to get out of this sick care paradigm.

Dr. Pinkus 
5:05
First of all pressure point therapy. I'm a chiropractor. I've been practicing for over three decades. And when I first started my practice, we had an acupuncture clinic, as well as chiropractic. And we got this letter from the Center for Disease Control that says, if you're using needles, you better watch out, there's this new epidemic going around that gets transferred through the blood. And sure enough, it was AIDS. And so my acupuncture practice died overnight. No one wanted to be, you know, around blood, including the doctors and the clinicians. So I switched to acupressure, and the patient's liked it better. And then looking at the eastern Meridian charts, with all the points that you've seen these these Asian charts, I thought, you know, is there any correlation between the Asian system and the Western system, and we look at nerve charts. So I started correlating them. And sure enough, I found that there were pressure points that kind of matched the East and the West. And I started documenting them and getting tremendous results. I wrote my first book in 1993, on pressure point therapy, went on a book tour that I thought would last three months, and I was still going five years later, it was on the charts for being the best seller. During during that time, Amazon was a bookstore.

Lisa 
6:50
I remember.

Dr. Pinkus 
6:53
So so anyway, what a pressure point is basically an area of stress that that a body whether it's a human body, or pet body, it holds that stress. And when it comes to your dogs and your cats, you can feel the stress because they're basically areas where the muscles have tightened up, specifically around the nerve. And so anyone can have a tight muscle, or any dog or cat can have a tight muscle is when they tighten up around the nerve that they start losing their function. It's like turning off the light switch, the power goes off to that part of the body. So let's say your dog has a pressure point up at the base of the neck like right behind the years will those nerves ended up going into the years so your dog can be prone to ear infections, when you have pressure points there, pressure points in the mid back on your dog or cat go into the digestive track. So you can end up having you know, your your pet, constantly having digestive problems, whether it's vomiting or diarrhea, or they can't hold their their, you know, go to the bathroom. And so, you know, I started correlating this with the pets because, you know, I've, I've had my share of home as well. And I found out that the pets respond as well or if not better than humans for this technique.

Lisa 
8:24
Yeah. See, that is so cool. You know, there was so many interesting things in the book, you know, we talked a little bit I mentioned, you know, the old model is only doing something when your pet is sick. And you talk about the importance of pressure points and vitamins, nutrition, other natural methods, which is so important. You also talk about in chapter two power on and power off. What does that mean? And can you share an example?

Dr. Pinkus 
8:48
Yes, so, so power on Power Off is kind of the simplistic way to look at how I view the body as a chiropractor, and you know, chiropractic is how a lot of myths notions, let's say like oh, you go to the chiropractor when your back hurts, but it has a it has a much greater purpose, which is to make sure that the innate healing power of the body gets to every part of the body. And the conduits for that healing power has to do with the nervous system. Whether it's your cat, your dog or your sister. Want to make sure the nerves are open. When it comes to healing, you know doctors really don't do anything to heal the body. It's your body heals itself if you give it the right environment to heal itself through and so and it and it will last an awfully long time. Especially for your pet if all those flows are open. So I look at I look at like my my own dogs and my cats that I've had it is power on or power off? If they're if they're dragging? If there's they look at you and you obviously know something's not right, then you got to find out well, why isn't this right? And the first thing I do is I check the areas that I document in the book, the pressure point for pets book, to see where the circuit breakers are blown. It's mostly blown circuit breakers. Let me give you an example. We we had and I say had because we just lost them recently, but we had litter brothers to Westies maximum miles, and they were the cutest pair you've ever seen. And one of them. Miles developed, he must have jumped off the couch Ron, and they have short little legs and brought them into Dr. George our vet. And I said Miles is limping. And he checked him out. He says, Yeah, he has an ACL tear in his left knee. And George is a board certified surgeon. And he does, he basically does rescue dogs like like big greyhounds in that. Who are known for that problem. He says we can schedule him, you know, to do this procedure. And I said, Well, okay, George. Dr. George, let me let me just do this. Can I treat him myself for a while and see if I can do some? He's Oh, yes, yes, yes, of course. So I started treating a little miles and figuring out where the pressure points were that went to the knee, which turns out that they're in the low back. Christine, right. Yeah. And then I correlated that like in humans. What do we have going from our low back to our knees, the sciatic nerve. So I started working the pressure points along miles sciatic nerve, and then a few other ones. And he wouldn't you know, he was hurting to begin with, really, you know, he was looking at me and just, I'll tell you how to treat the points in your shot. But I was doing the treatment brought him back to Dr. George six weeks later, with Max's brother. And there we've done identical twins. So they both they're both on the stainless steel exam table. And George is literally scratching his head looking at the charts. And he says which one was the one that was at miles and had the ACL? Yeah, he says it's not there anymore. I go. Yeah, exactly. Miles is is running up and down the stairs. He's jumping off the bed. He's chasing his brother. He's chasing the squirrels. He's fine. He says, Whatever you did,

Lisa 
12:37
it fixed it. That's amazing.

Dr. Pinkus
12:41
So yeah, there's some really cool things you can do with this technique.

Lisa 
12:45
Oh, man, I wish I had known about this before my poor blue and he was to my pity. He had both of his back knees done. And it was a lot and he had a he had such a good boy, he had a back to back. He couldn't walk for a long time. I mean, it was rough. But he's very easygoing. And we got through it. And now he runs like a champ. I am wondering, though, does it depend on the severity of the tear? Like if, you know, for something like this to work, because I think blues were pretty much shot? I don't know. Yeah.

Dr. Pinkus 
13:16
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, you can, you know, this technique is not, it's not to supplant going to your vet for anything in my mind. Like your vet, you should have a great vet and just praise them all the time. Because they know they, when I was when I was going to University of Minnesota to do my, my undergraduate to get into chiropractic college, it turned out that I was studying at the vet school. And, and I was also studying at the med school, both both campuses, to do my, my classes, and the vet students were just so much, you know, they're they were more brilliant, let's say, then, than the other side. where education is incredible. But yes, they to answer your question. You don't take something into your own hands, both literally and figuratively. And say, I'm going to completely fix my pet using this technique. It's to work with your vet. And you see what happens now. In terms of surgery. My viewpoint has always been with pets and humans, if it's not emergency surgery, and you can kind of put it off, then I would try the pressure point for pets and see if it works. Now in the book, there's I've got 96 different drawings in the book. So we go through all kinds of conditions. So you really get the idea of how to find the points and where they are and so forth. So you know, you can definitely give it a good Right. And I'm really glad I did that with miles because it probably added years to his life.

Lisa 
15:05
Oh, that is amazing. It really is. So once we find these pressure points, you press it down gently for 10 to 15 seconds, you also talk about the importance of having a calm environment saying, you know, like praising your dog tell us more about like getting this setup, and then how we're going to do it once you find the points.

Dr. Pinkus 
15:25
Yeah, so I kind of patterned all that after my human practice where when someone comes in, and they're having a problem, I'm not, I'm not trying to entertain them, I'm trying to focus in on what their problem is, and have them relaxed. So the so the treatment goes in. So it's the same with your pet, like, you know, you can have you can, I find it very easy to get my pets excited about something. My wife accuses me of like, you know, over exciting them, but but that was that's kind of my joy, you know, them while but this is this is real calm, this is chill, like, it's like, Okay, we're gonna put you on the couch here. And I'm gonna do a treatment and I just tell them, I'm going to do a treatment and this is going to help you. And you put that intention on see, you know, your dogs can't communicate with you. But, but you you can communicate through intention. Right? Oh, yeah. You know, I had a friend who was a diver and he went to the keys. And he says, Mike, I was I was in this channel. And there were like, 1000s

Lisa 
16:33
What is it baby? That's my lab. What is it bench? Bench? Can you be quiet? My sweet love, thank you. Go ahead.

Dr. Pinkus 
16:41
Perfect. A bench. So he said he was in this channel, and there were 1000s of Barracuda around him. And he could reach out and touch them. And you know, and but he's, he was a spear fisherman. So the minute he got the idea that wow, I could just spear any one of these fish right now. They all disappeared. Oh, wow. They've disappeared the minute he had that thought, wow. Or that, you know, that intention, which is a thought and action. So I talked about in the book, how you have to have the intention. Like now you're going to help your dog or cat this is this is this is this is like healing time. Yeah. So it says sometimes you have to calm them down and pet them and just kind of do the relaxation thing. But once they're in the zone, it's it's amazing. Like they really get it. And so it's quiet time you don't want a lot of noise. You don't want a lot of distractions. And that's it, then you start your treatment.

Lisa 
17:47
Oh, that is so cool. So some of the things that I was so excited about because again, people listen to the show. They know my pity has a typical bully breed, itchy skin itchy ears, my lab has a typical hip dysplasia arthritis situation. I'm bringing Benji to aquatic therapy in a few weeks or a couple of weeks, I brought bluedot Wonderful holistic vet who's trying to heal his gut, it's going to be very slow because he's he's got a lot of issues. But I feel like I'm you know, on the right track, which is exciting. And I would love to add this because you share a story about a dog that had some pretty bad arthritis. Tell us about Sydney, the 12 year old Australian Shepherd.

Dr. Pinkus 
18:28
Right. Okay, so, so Sydney had a brother who was a bulldog. So she was always shepherd in the Bulldog. And this is my sister in law and brother in law's and, you know, we go over to their house for Thanksgiving or whatever. Every family member wants an adjustment. Alright, so I eat real quickly. And then, you know, I'm doing like 20 treatments on, you know, and we what we do is we put a blanket on the floor, and then I start working and then they line up. But there's Sydney and Sydney's looking at me. And she's like, you know, cocking her head and looking at it like, Hey, I'm neck. So, okay, Sydney, so you lay down right here, and she did. And she has she had terrible hip dysplasia, and everything the shepherds get. And I got on one of her points on her hip, and one of the hips and held the point. And she gave me that look, she actually turned her head around and looked at me. And, you know, I worked the points and just just like I was with the humans, and she got up and my system was Steph said, that dog was running up and down the stairs. She was out there barking at the mailman. Like, just back to like, Puppy mentality, you know, because her body was in her Oh, I don't believe that's really get old. I think they get sore and they get tight and but they have no way to see it. They have no way to tell you. So you have to look at their indicators.

Lisa 
20:10
Yeah, that is so true. What will talk to us about some of those indicators is it being like you mentioned earlier, more lethargic, not as playful. I mean, my, you just look at Benji and I know people can't see me, but his front legs are literally like they're locked when he walks. It's not good. That's why I gotta get this going along with like I mentioned the aquatic therapy.

Dr. Pinkus 
20:29
Yeah. And so for Benji, yeah, well, you know, there's obvious things that they're, you know, they're stiff, and they're not moving, their joints aren't bending. And what I like to do with a dog like that is to take and have the dog next to me either on the floor or the couch, and take the paw, and, you know, take the knee and just, you know, move it around, just like stretching class. So that's one thing is you can do it, and you come to a range of motion where it stops, and then you don't try to do anymore, but you just bring it up to that point. And then just a little bit more a little bit more. And that's so one of the indicators is you just look at them, and they, they don't, they're there's walking or they're being stiff. The other is, it could be just like a, you know, like, they're tired all the time. They're kind of moping, they have the lower part of their eyes are sagging. You know, sometimes they they have a different smell like like, you know, their bodies smell is, it's not like a like rolling in poop. But you can tell that they're emitting something they're trying to detoxify, it can be their breath that can be in there forever, and their skin. So, you know, they're just the indicators, then there's the other indicators, where they're so Gosh, darn hyper, that they they just, you know, they just bark at everything, they bite at things, they're peeing in the house. They're, you know, and we tend to humanize the dog. So there's all this, you know, we're putting in like, psychological terminology now for for these things that the dogs are depressed or it's anxious or separation anxiety, or PTSD, or whatever. The only dogs I know that have PTSD are the ones that are really like the canine or the military dogs, which can have PTSD. If I'm around guns and explosives, I'd be a little bit whacked out too. But, but but really, you know, like what we were talking about before power on power off. It's like, you can have the power being too much on, right. And then you have then you have your hands full trying to get a dog or cat. The cats when they're hyperactive. They're They're incredible. They're like, they're the they're the scary ones. They'll come in at you for no reason. And, you know,

Lisa 
23:05
I'm already I'm already afraid of cats. So I can't I'm like, Oh, no.

Dr. Pinkus 
23:09
Yeah, we've had a few of those they get they just get a little bit too whacked out and so the pressure points will settle them down. You get some back into their normal personality. And most dogs and cats their normal personalities are beautiful. They're brilliant.

Lisa 
23:25
Yeah, you know, this goes back to the nervous system as well. And I love in the book you write the nervous system as a whole is the original social network. Expand on that for us?

Dr. Pinkus 
23:35
Yeah, so. So the way the nerves work in the body and the way pain works, specifically, pain in your dog, you know, your hip, dysplasia, dog and all that. So one nerve, let's say, let's say let's talk about humans for a minute. Let's say you get a sliver in your finger. No one likes that. Right? But so but it's one little thing you can hardly see you need the magnifying glass look at it. That one little sliver is causing a lot of pain.

Lisa 
24:10
Yeah, it's kind of insane, right? Like how painful that can be?

Dr. Pinkus 
24:14
Yeah, yeah. Because there's there's literally 1000s of nerve endings right around that. So the social network part is one little thing will communicate with 1000s of other nerves, which communicate them with 10s of 1000s of other nerves, and now you're having a really bad day. But the but the original the original injury or the original point of contact can be very, very minut very, very minor. But so that's just on the pain side then you have the Oregon side. And that that could be like a huge failure on a small pet or a you know any pet It can be a huge failure that you have one organ acting up, which acts up with another organ. Pretty soon you have the liver involved and the kidneys involved and systemic things. And that's unfortunately, sometimes it's too late where they have to put that animal down.

Lisa 
25:17
Yeah, that's awful. It's interesting with the pressure point therapy, you know, my initial thought is, of course, for hip dysplasia and arthritis. I didn't think of, you know, an itchy code or itchy ears, I'm thinking, because I think of, you know, if I have a certain point, and it's tight, and I'll say, hon, to my husband, could you put your elbow in my back and find that spot? And then he'll push on it for 10 to 15 seconds. Right. But I've always thought of it not. But so I've always thought of it as a musculature issue, right. Yeah. Talk to us about how the pressure point affects like a skin condition.

Dr. Pinkus 
25:52
Right? Well, first of all this, many, many pets have skin conditions, I think. I don't know the actual statistics. But I would think maybe one out of 10 Veterinary visits are for skin conditions. And here, you know, itchy ears. And when it comes to the skin, the skin is the largest organ of elimination in the body. Oh, true. Right, there's more, there's more real estate on the outside of the body than there is in the inside. So when you have a pet that has itchy skin, psoriasis, dermatitis, scabs, whatever it might be, and even I found even pets that are prone to fleas, you know, flea infestations, like normally, animals in the wild can handle fleas with their own immune system. So it's an indicator that the immune system suppressed, okay. And there are pressure points I found that are really effective to help your pet with their skin problems, because the energy is not getting to the skin. So the skin is the landing, you know, like there's, my one of my vets once told me, your dog is so close to the ground, that they're going to pick up anything and everything that's around, it's going to just stick to them. So so the skin is like it's like a petri dish, it's an incubator, and the pets immune system isn't good enough to handle it. Plus, they're trying to detox something. So in the book, I talk about how to handle skin conditions from pressure points to vitamins. I told the story of one of one of our dogs who had dermatitis so bad, we brought him to the vet. We brought him first of all to the neighborhood vet who had been there for 30 years, you know, really nice guy uses Yeah, your dog has dermatitis and put them on a steroid. Okay, and the dog was sleeping all the time. Then he got like really nervous, almost like someone gave him some magic mushrooms or something like he was like out of his mind and he ran away. And, like, dog wears Winky. When he we found him three miles away. This little dog ran. He was trying to run out of his environment. He was trying to leave his body almost he was so miserable. So we can't do this to him. We got him off the drugs brought him to a holistic vet who said look, dermatitis is more difficult to treat than cancer. In in these pets. I'd rather have a cancer patient than a dermatitis patient. And he took a look at my dog and said, Look, your dog is a little bit overweight. He's toxic. He's not digesting his food. He has halitosis bad breath. He's listed all these things. So short short story is that we we stopped the medicated shampoos because that was just making the skin condition worse. And so he said, Look, you got to bathe him in nice warm water, but then you want to put some nice oil on his skin and who cares if he's little oily, but that will nourish the skin. Like all da you know, we do it for our own bodies. Yeah. And then we put them on a diet and got rid of his bad foods and got him on some supplements. And sure enough, and then of course the pressure points and it cleared up. He was happy the rest of his life. It cleared up

Lisa 
29:32
and it gives me so much hope for blue. I mean, his holistic vet said it's gonna take like years like his digests, he doesn't digest at all like he is a mess. But I'm thinking yeah, but at least I'm started I mean, who cares if it takes years let's just get it done. And it's such a better feeling than just going for the injection every month and although I'll be honest, because he's going to take so long and he's been chewing at his paws and super itchy. I said, Is it okay that I give he gets us what's called the cytopoint and Jack she can. And she said yes, because there's a balance you don't want him to just to himself to death. Right? Right. And while the stronger he gets and yes, that's going to suppress his immune system and make the whole, you know, make it all take a little longer, but you don't want your dog to suffer. So I don't know if you've experienced that where sometimes it's not good to just take them right off the meds, like find a balance of healing.

Dr. Pinkus 
30:23
Yes, that's really that's a great point least because what what, you know, as a holistic doctor, you know, I always like to try holistic things first. And I was really concerned that animals being drugged the way they are drug, and I think they are over drug angry, but animals tend to handle medicines better than humans, believe it or not, okay? Because their immune system, their immune systems are amazing. So I want to sidetrack one, just on some data. Sure. So, I was doing research on vitamin C.

Lisa 
31:03
Oh, I saw your video by the way. I was checking you out on your on your really? Yeah, it was great.

Dr. Pinkus 
31:09
That's cool, right? Yeah. So humans are one of three mammals that don't make their own vitamin C out of almost 6000 mammals on the planet. Humans are one of three. It's the humans, guinea pigs and the primates, monkeys and apes and that sort of thing. So we don't make our own vitamin C, but they started checking out like, like my dog. 26 pound Westie would make 5000 milligrams of vitamin C a day. Okay, they started studying like the big cats that you see on National Geographic Channel, they would make upwards of upwards of 50,000 to 100,000 units of vitamin C a day, especially when they're, you know, capturing a gazelle and eating raw food with flies and maggots, right, all around, right. But their body needs the immune support. So the body creates that domesticated animals and our kind of more towards the human scale where our immune systems will look, just look what happened with COVID, everything, we're coming out of this, but the immune systems are not up to par in our animals. So we have to help them work with them on that. And the skin conditions are just an indication that, you know, we need to do more pressure points and do the things that you're doing, which include spot medicine, vitamins, diet, and I'll put this pressure point and you'll see a huge difference.

Lisa 
32:51
Yeah, I'm so excited to put it into action. You know, I had this idea last night, I was thinking, what if you created the thinnest layer of material ever, for different sized dogs and different breed dogs that had all the spots on them? So I would just take my lab and I put this little thing on him, and then I can see exactly where the spots are. I thought that was kind of a fun idea.

Dr. Pinkus 
33:15
No, no, we need to talk about you know, I always I always depend on my hands. And obviously, they've become very sensitive over the years to figure out and but everyone kind of has that sensitivity yet, you just have to kind of develop it more. Because what you're feeling for when you're looking for a pressure point. First of all the pressure points on cats and dogs are located most of them one inch to either side of the spine. Oh, then that okay. Yeah, yeah, the spine is what holds the the the nervous system, in cases so and then the spinal nerves leave the spine and they go to all the different they migrate to different parts of the body. So the pressure points will be you know, you feel the bumps in the middle of their back, it's about a half inch on either side of that. And so, what I like to do, just as an experiment, just to get people started is just take your hand, your thumb and your finger and go to either side of the spine, starting at their ears, and just kind of slowly go down all the way to their tail. You can do that two or three times and first of all, your pet will love it because that's that's ground zero for where the nerves are, right? Yeah. But then the next time you're doing this you know feel with your thumb on one side feel with your finger and the other and compare it is one side feel tighter than the other. There's one side feel like there's restriction or not, it's not moving. Do you feel something that feels like a little like Gumball or a little pebble under the skin in that area? Because you can start to feel for the pressure points. And the charts are kind of the charts in the book and the pressure point for pets book will bring you there. You know, it will, it will bring you to the right area, then it's up to you to start to feel for the area. The other thing is that when you start treating a pressure point, you sense well, this area is tight right there, you put enough pressure on that point. And it's not a whole lot. It's maybe just the way they have your finger, your thumb. It's not like you're putting your elbow or you know, you're not doing wrestling with them, it's just very light. If a lot of times the pets eyes will look at you. They'll they'll kind of turn their eyes looking. Sometimes they'll turn their head. Sometimes if it's real sore, they'll give you a little Woo, like a whimper or what's better as a sigh. Like they'll communicate with you that you're on the right spot.

Lisa 
35:56
Oh, that's great.

Dr. Pinkus 
35:57
Then you hold the spot for 10 or 15 seconds. You can feel it release under your hand under your finger thumb. It's like putting your finger in butter. And it starts to melt it.

Lisa 
36:09
Wow. That is so cool. Well, you know, I brought up something earlier about you know, having the tight spot and then the elbow in the back. But pressure points are more about energy, right? It's not I'm thinking of just tight muscles. Because Isn't this like has to have to do with like acupuncture does not have to do with like getting the energy flowing. Isn't this part of that too?

Dr. Pinkus 
36:31
Absolutely. You're right on with that. Yeah, it's all about energy. Okay, getting that energy through your pets body.

Lisa 
36:37
You talk about healing touch.

Dr. Pinkus 
36:39
You know, that's a good discussion point. Because originally, I heard about pressure point for pets. When I was in chiropractic college, where the dean emeritus was talking about one of his patients had a shepherd. And they were about to put him down and they came in crying. He says what's wrong? He says, We got to go to the vet next. And they said, Dr. D, can you you know, check my pet? He says, Yeah, give me a day. And he went to the vet library and studied the anatomy of this particular dog. They brought him in, he ended up finding something that needed adjusting in the dog like a spinal adjustment. And he did and the dog survived it. Wow. So but the Healing Touch he's and then then he says look, he says, In humans, any any practitioner that touches whether it's chiropractor, or massage therapist, they the way they try to justify its non scientific, you know, whatever. They say, well, it's It's mind over matter. It's psychosomatic. It's, it's, it's like that. But he says what I really like about working with dogs and with cats, is they don't have there's no, there's no placebo effect at all with an animal

Lisa 
38:08
eggs. I love that in the book. I thought that was brilliant, because that makes so much sense.

Dr. Pinkus 
38:12
Yeah, it's the real deal. It either works or doesn't work,

Lisa 
38:16
right? Yeah, I mean, right now, you know, blue with the holistic bat is doing muscle testing. And that to me looks as woowoo as ever. But yet she's been really spot on. It's kind of amazing. He can tell us a little bit about it too. That would be great.

Dr. Pinkus 
38:31
Well, that's called applied Kinesiology. Kinesiology means movement applied, means you're looking for different spots in the body. And the way you test it with pets is as little bizarre because it's called surrogate testing. Like, you can't tell the pet to hold their paw.

Lisa 
38:50
I was wondering when I was like, when someone's like, oh, well, oh, yeah, I saw her she really helped my dog. They're gonna do muscle testing. And I'm thinking, I'm just picturing cute little blue with like, hold your arm up. Can you push it down? You know, but anyway, go on.

Dr. Pinkus 
39:03
Yeah, so that's kind of more advanced. I don't talk about that in the pressure point book because it's, it's kind of more you know, I've had hundreds of hours of training in applied Kinesiology. Yeah, and where that where that rabbit hole goes, is it it correlates Eastern science so we test for different points. For example, on humans, in my practice, there are points for the lungs and points for for the stomach, the liver, kidney. So you can test different organ points just by touching them. And patients reaction when it first starts happening, touch an area in their muscle goes weak, they go you're pulling harder. Exactly. Right. But it's not it's an actual circuit. You're finding dead circuits in the body. And and then you can test vitamins against It's pretty wild world.

Lisa 
39:58
It looks really weird, but it were I believe it. So okay, so let's say for Benji, for example, or you have a dog that whatever the issue is, how many times a day how often so for his, you know, the fact that he walks with both, you know, front legs completely stiff, and he's clearly uncomfortable. How often would I do this once I get all the spots down?

Dr. Pinkus 
40:23
I would, I would do it twice a day, once in the morning, once at night. So Benji, it's time for treatment. And it's a little bit in the same kind of tonality, like it's time to go for a walk, it's time for a treat, it's time for a ride in the car. And I had my boys train, when I said, Who wants a treatment? They would jump on the couch each on one side of me. And then they would spar with each other to see who would go first.

Lisa 
40:50
Well, it's tough. It's love. It's a tension. And it feels good, right? I mean, when you get the right spot.

Dr. Pinkus 
40:55
Yeah. And then after I finished the treatment, they would notice me nuzzle me with their nose that they wanted more. Oh, wow. I said, Look, your brother's next, I'll come back to you just have to wait your turn. And so I go to the other one. But the first one was start to whine that he wanted more. So, so in terms of Benji, though, yeah, you just say, look, it's time for treatment. Let's let's do this. I want you to lay down, relax and pet them. And then you start the pressure point. And it only takes five minutes. It's not like an all day thing. Five minutes of doing the points. And you know when they're done when they kind of give you that? Ah, ah, you know, yeah, yeah. I gave one of my books to my neighbor who has a pit mix. Do you have a pit mix?

Lisa 
41:46
I have a pure blue nose. I've had a pet mix. Oh, they're great, too.

Dr. Pinkus 
41:50
Yeah, they're they're way smarter, smarter than the third grader, right? Yeah. So anyway, she she did the first chart in the book, which I recommend everyone does, which is called the vitality chart. I did that with my pets almost every day. And she said that her her dog went into what she called the zone. Like went into this like Zen zone. And there was even like a dog barking outside, which would normally drive this dog nuts. Yeah. She raised her head once and then later. I'd love to and I'm this is my treatment. So that's what happens, the dogs go into their natural zone.

Lisa 
42:37
I think the thing that I was nervous about, but not now after speaking with you is what if I'm in like, what if I'm in the wrong place, but you give such clear instructions, which is why people have to get pressure point therapy for pets by Dr. Michael Pincus, what an inch from the spine or so

Dr. Pinkus 
42:53
what like a half, it depends on the size of the breed, like a cat would be like a quarter of an inch. Yeah. Your shepherd would be more like a half an inch to the side of the spine.

Lisa 
43:05
Let's talk about longevity. 

Dr. Pinkus 
43:07
Before I wrote the book, I had one of those moments where I was able to look back over several decades of myself as a pet owner, before I came, became a doctor. And then after I became a doctor, and then started applying my alternative health techniques, which includes pressure point therapy with my cats and dogs. And I had this moment like, oh my gosh, like, my pets lived on average way to the end of the spectrum of where they should be or should have lived. Like, like, we never lost an animal early for one. We had one we had one cat that had cancer and, and we brought her in and they wanted to they said look, we can do a lumpectomy or we could put her down right now what do you think? Do one back to me? And they said, well, we'll probably see it again between three and six weeks to do the other thing. Put her down. She lasted between I think it was 19 months. Oh wow. In those 19 months, you know, year and a half. Were the best years of her life. Right? Because Because I applied these techniques and we worked with we worked with getting the energy through her body so her body could heal and doing nutrition and doing it right and detoxing her body. And she was like a kitten she was she was so appreciative. And that's the other thing too is that when you start doing these techniques with your own pets, you will find the appreciation factor. Like you'll get double double kisses likies and the tailors will go twice as fast because they know you're actually helping them and they're very appreciative.

Lisa 
44:55
That's great you know I wish I had this when my Bailey he was a Border Terrier pity MCs Oh my God, such a love. He looked like the dog from Something About Mary Exactly. But so, so cute. He went and went and wet and wet and wet and then died like there was no illness, no sickness, no problems like full speed. He died at 13, which I thought was a little early because he wasn't a big bit. I mean, he was like a medium sized dog. And then my second dog, which we had at the same time as Bailey Bobo was an Irish setter, German Shepherd mix and absolute sweetest dog. And he lived until 15, which was pretty good for that size dog. But it just makes me wonder But the beauty is, my Benji now who desperately needs this pressure point is nine and has, you know, the arthritis and stuff. And then blue with all the Ag near problems is seven and a half. So I feel like at least I've got some time to, you know, help their longevity, which is really incredible.

Dr. Pinkus 
45:52
Yeah, so you bring up a really good point, Lisa, because my viewpoint, my wife says I'm always trying to heal everything.

Lisa 
46:01
Let's start with that. Right, like I'll take

Dr. Pinkus 
46:03
I'll take plants in the summer that are that have been starved of water. And I'll like nursing, like their little kids, right? Till they come back. Why don't we, but but I like to play the game with my pets to have that longevity, it's like part of my game plan for having them. It's inevitable that day will come where we have to put our pets down. But that said, and you know, you can kind of put that in the future. You don't have to think about that right now. My game plan is how do we make that time? Stretch how what's How can we maximize that time where you can have, you know, the enjoyment of your pet. And I've done that now, like over and over and over again, with my pets using pressure point techniques and vitamins. I have a whole chapter in the book about about nutrition. And I had a neighbor once who had a dog who never wanted to see that dog goal, the dog was very sick. And he refused to put it down. And that's kind of an extreme viewpoint, that's not what I'm talking about is trying to get the very last, you know, you have an old clunker car and you're trying to get the last mile out of it. Now, you always have to do what's best for the pet, not for your own self and your emotion. Exactly. But like we're talking about that health, like the health scale, like we use, you know, you're talking in the show, we have a we have a health care system, and we have a sickness care system I'm for let's maximize the health of that pet to keep them away from sickness. And that's what this technique will do. If you if you start applying it with your dogs on a daily basis, which only takes a few minutes, you will start to find over time that, you know, they they have more energy, they have more mobility. And also you get closer to him. It's kind of a weird thing. You know, we're already close to our pets. But but that that that starts to go up and up and up. It's like crazy good.

Lisa 
48:18
Oh, it's so great. You know, Dr. Pinkus, end of life issues are so difficult and it's so heart wrenching, yet it's necessary. And I like what you talked about in the book. And if you could share that with us now

Dr. Pinkus 
48:30
we were putting a dog down, who was already 16 I'd been doing this on him since he was a puppy. And I thought 16 years is not long enough. This is a love of my life, you know, other than my wife and, and child. But I said this isn't fair, you know, you should have more time. And, and I was having a really bad time, you know, in that in because I was with him when the doctor was going to inject him. And he looked at me and he says you shouldn't worry, Mike, Michael, you shouldn't worry. He says this is the way it's been since the beginning of time. My body is not serving me anymore. It's not serving you anymore. And this is what we do in nature. We just kind of let it drop we drop the body. And when he gave me that communication, my grief went away. My understanding got so high about life itself. Right. Yeah. And I realized my own beliefs is like this isn't the only rodeo I believe, you know, as the human spirit or a dog or cat spirit that there's there's more there's more to come. Right? That's my own thing. I believe in that I've realized that so I realized there is a time for putting down your pet and it's tough. But you you know it's part of life. Believe it or not. You So that's one thing. The other was the most romantic, remarkable healing experience I had was a friend of ours who rang my doorbell in the middle. It was late morning, I remember and she came kind of unannounced with this box and she's crying. And well, what's what's up here, Julie, she says, I'm on my way to the vet with my cat. And the cat has uremia where the urine is backing up into their system, because they had fu s which is feline urinary syndrome. Their urethra, something gets swollen, they can't pee, the kidneys are backing up. She says can you do anything with this pressure point, whatever I said, Well, I don't know. I've never done it. So she opens up the box. And there's a tall with this beautiful tabby cat lane there. But the cat isn't moving. I already thought the cat was dead. The only thing that was moving were the eyes. So I saw that there was some life left. So I started on the pressure points. I get down to the area where the kidneys are. And I hit a spot. And I could tell it was bad because the cat actually lifted her head and looked at me with all her strength. So I just held that spotlight probably longer than the 15 seconds, hit some other spots, went back and did it again and did a third time. I said here, Julie, I don't know what I just did. But she says well, the cats moving. I go Yeah. So she calls me half hour later crying hysterically on the phone. Now I'm thinking yeah, she really did the deed put her down. She says no on the way to the vet. The cat started voiding in the box after two days of not urine ish. And brought it to the vet. And the vet says yeah, that's what we want take her home. That was like a happily ever after that cat lived for years after that.

Lisa 
52:05
That must feel so incredible. That work that you do.

Dr. Pinkus 
52:09
I put a little feather in the cap on that one. You should. Yeah, that's amazing.

Lisa 
52:14
This has been so incredibly interesting. Again, the book is pressure point therapy for pets become the master of your pets health. Dr. Michael Pincus. Dr. Peak is where can we find you and your wonderful book and all the other great stuff about you?

Dr. Pinkus 
52:31
Well, the best place is pressure point for pets. Just go to pressure point pets.com pressure point therapy.com My last name is pink us like the color pink, and us, Pincus. And so I'm all over everywhere on that, you know, social media and all that. And I do answer questions people do. Send me you know, instant messages. And I do answer questions. Yeah. And the other thing too, that they set up on the website on pressure point pets, there's a place where you check out if you want to buy the book. It's not real expensive. It's like $36 for the book, when you want to get all the pressure point material for humans and pets. It's all there. But when you check out there's a little box that says coupon. If you put the word radio, R A D IO, you get a discount, which is cool. They said that Oh

Lisa 
53:27
nice. I'll put that in the show notes. That's great. Yeah, yeah. Awesome. You are so pleasant and so fun to talk to. I just think you're awesome. And this has been super fun. Everybody keep coming back to dogeared always something great. I've just loved doing the show. I've met the most wonderful people and please rate review, subscribe, keep coming back. So I have some exciting news. Dr. Michael Pincus stayed after with me I got videos of myself working on Benji with his direction. So go to my Instagram or my tic toc or my Twitter at Lisa Davis mph there'll be a series of videos so if you're thinking I want to do this I'm not really okay. Just first of all get the book again. pressure point therapy for pets become the master of your pet's health. And then you can see him guiding me with Benji keep coming back to dog eared and do follow me because you don't want to miss anything on my on my watch McCall it social media. Thank you