By Tommy Brannon
Dale Schneider, DVM has been a regular fixture at mid-south boarding barns for the past 18 years. Although he lives in Whitesboro, Texas, he makes the trek to the Memphis and North Mississippi areas once a month, spending several days to do equine chiropractic and acupuncture treatment on horses in the area. The days we interviewed him, he was treating horses at Oak View Stables in Olive Branch, MS and Spring Mill Farm in Fisherville, TN. He also regularly visits Trinity Farm in Lakeland, TN.
He is such a regular that he knows most of his equine patients by name. He can tell whether each horse actually needs treatment or not each month. He says that he sees no reason to treat a horse that will not benefit from treatment. This is good for the horse as well as the owner’s bank account.
Dr. Dale graduated from Kansas State Veterinary School in 1991 and had a veterinary clinic in Nebraska for 13 years. He has been exclusively practicing equine chiropractic and acupuncture for the past 18 years. He received his Chiropractic training in Colorado. The Memphis area is now the only place he travels outside of Texas, although he used to travel all the way to Middleburg, VA and Phoenix, AZ. That said, some of the areas that he services in Texas are further away from his home than Memphis. Dale said, “While still living in Nebraska I was in Texas showing a horse. It was in July and the weather was so hot there they started the show at 6:00 p.m. and ran it during the night instead of the day. I was doing acupuncture my own horse and this guy walks by, watching me, and asks me to do his horse. He was really pleased with the results. He started bugging me to come to Memphis and do his jumpers. Well, I was a cowboy from western Nebraska and I had not touched a jumper, did not know anything about jumpers, nor did I care to know about jumpers. He bugged me a few months, so I finally relented and came to Memphis. When I came back the next month to recheck the horse, he had a friend who wanted her horses done, and she had a friend who had a couple, and so on. So here I am 18 years later doing jumpers in Memphis. Needless to say, I know a lot more about jumpers than I did when I first came here.
“I’ll have 8 or 10 barns a day to visit in the Memphis area, depending on the size of the barn. If I go to Spring Mill Farm, for example, they may have a dozen or so head of horses to do. My first horse will be at 7:30 in the morning and my last horse will be 7:30 in the evening. I go from one barn to the next, one may be in Eads TN and the next in Bed Banks, MS. I do mainly hunter jumpers in the Memphis area, but also a little bit of everything, I do a surprising number of retired horses, as well as hunters, jumpers, dressage horses, some barrel horses, as well as some cutters. At home, the majority are cutters and reiners. Every horse I see with a few exceptions I have worked on for years. I kind of know their deal and can do 3 horses in the time it takes to do one that I haven’t seen before. I do both chiropractic and acupuncture treatment on almost every horse I work on. At home I get calls from veterinarians who have a problem they can’t figure out. They want me to check the acupuncture points just to get a different view. That has not always been the case. When I first moved down there many, but not all, used to think I was a quack. Not so now. So that is part of my business there, as well.”
Dr. Dale is very open to explaining what he is trying to accomplish during the process. I took him my 11-year-old Quarter Horse mare who was showing signs of being out of alignment on the left side. She was in season at the time and that seemed to be overriding any other issues that she had. He explained that “some mares cycle very hard and some hardly ever cycle out,” i.e., they stay in season most of the time. He moved his “feeler” across her shoulder and noted that she showed signs of some pain in that area, which is an acupuncture point for the ovaries. This sensitivity had do to her being in season, as well as the sensitivity she was showing in her croup, as would be expected for a mare in season. He put needles in the heels of her front feet, explaining that those points are like a sedative and usually calm a horse down. He added that not all horses are calmed by needles at these points. He stated, “Needles in those points can act like a drug on some horses, but like a drug, if the horse is anxious and keyed up, you may not see any affect at all.”
After adjustments to the mare’s lumbar he said, “Adjusting the lumbars is like an oil change or a lube job. It lubes things up and makes them move better.” He also put acupuncture needles in the points that connect to hersacroiliac joint.
The combination of chiropractic and acupuncture treatment complement each other, and the results for my horse were a relaxed, comfortable horse. Another horse owner noted, “Once the needles were placed in the points that Dr. Schneider felt needed to be treated, the horse was relaxed and took a nap.”
Dr. Dale does not have a facebook page or website, but others post stories on facebook about how he has helped their horses. To get in touch with Dr. Dale by phone, call (940) 902-1544.
Dale Schneider, DVM has been a regular fixture at mid-south boarding barns for the past 18 years. Although he lives in Whitesboro, Texas, he makes the trek to the Memphis and North Mississippi areas once a month, spending several days to do equine chiropractic and acupuncture treatment on horses in the area. The days we interviewed him, he was treating horses at Oak View Stables in Olive Branch, MS and Spring Mill Farm in Fisherville, TN. He also regularly visits Trinity Farm in Lakeland, TN.
He is such a regular that he knows most of his equine patients by name. He can tell whether each horse actually needs treatment or not each month. He says that he sees no reason to treat a horse that will not benefit from treatment. This is good for the horse as well as the owner’s bank account.
Dr. Dale graduated from Kansas State Veterinary School in 1991 and had a veterinary clinic in Nebraska for 13 years. He has been exclusively practicing equine chiropractic and acupuncture for the past 18 years. He received his Chiropractic training in Colorado. The Memphis area is now the only place he travels outside of Texas, although he used to travel all the way to Middleburg, VA and Phoenix, AZ. That said, some of the areas that he services in Texas are further away from his home than Memphis. Dale said, “While still living in Nebraska I was in Texas showing a horse. It was in July and the weather was so hot there they started the show at 6:00 p.m. and ran it during the night instead of the day. I was doing acupuncture my own horse and this guy walks by, watching me, and asks me to do his horse. He was really pleased with the results. He started bugging me to come to Memphis and do his jumpers. Well, I was a cowboy from western Nebraska and I had not touched a jumper, did not know anything about jumpers, nor did I care to know about jumpers. He bugged me a few months, so I finally relented and came to Memphis. When I came back the next month to recheck the horse, he had a friend who wanted her horses done, and she had a friend who had a couple, and so on. So here I am 18 years later doing jumpers in Memphis. Needless to say, I know a lot more about jumpers than I did when I first came here.
“I’ll have 8 or 10 barns a day to visit in the Memphis area, depending on the size of the barn. If I go to Spring Mill Farm, for example, they may have a dozen or so head of horses to do. My first horse will be at 7:30 in the morning and my last horse will be 7:30 in the evening. I go from one barn to the next, one may be in Eads TN and the next in Bed Banks, MS. I do mainly hunter jumpers in the Memphis area, but also a little bit of everything, I do a surprising number of retired horses, as well as hunters, jumpers, dressage horses, some barrel horses, as well as some cutters. At home, the majority are cutters and reiners. Every horse I see with a few exceptions I have worked on for years. I kind of know their deal and can do 3 horses in the time it takes to do one that I haven’t seen before. I do both chiropractic and acupuncture treatment on almost every horse I work on. At home I get calls from veterinarians who have a problem they can’t figure out. They want me to check the acupuncture points just to get a different view. That has not always been the case. When I first moved down there many, but not all, used to think I was a quack. Not so now. So that is part of my business there, as well.”
Dr. Dale is very open to explaining what he is trying to accomplish during the process. I took him my 11-year-old Quarter Horse mare who was showing signs of being out of alignment on the left side. She was in season at the time and that seemed to be overriding any other issues that she had. He explained that “some mares cycle very hard and some hardly ever cycle out,” i.e., they stay in season most of the time. He moved his “feeler” across her shoulder and noted that she showed signs of some pain in that area, which is an acupuncture point for the ovaries. This sensitivity had do to her being in season, as well as the sensitivity she was showing in her croup, as would be expected for a mare in season. He put needles in the heels of her front feet, explaining that those points are like a sedative and usually calm a horse down. He added that not all horses are calmed by needles at these points. He stated, “Needles in those points can act like a drug on some horses, but like a drug, if the horse is anxious and keyed up, you may not see any affect at all.”
After adjustments to the mare’s lumbar he said, “Adjusting the lumbars is like an oil change or a lube job. It lubes things up and makes them move better.” He also put acupuncture needles in the points that connect to hersacroiliac joint.
The combination of chiropractic and acupuncture treatment complement each other, and the results for my horse were a relaxed, comfortable horse. Another horse owner noted, “Once the needles were placed in the points that Dr. Schneider felt needed to be treated, the horse was relaxed and took a nap.”
Dr. Dale does not have a facebook page or website, but others post stories on facebook about how he has helped their horses. To get in touch with Dr. Dale by phone, call (940) 902-1544.
