ST. LOUIS – Breathing hard, the elderly patient limped off a treadmill in Jacquie Welkener's physical therapy office in suburban Manchester, Mo., and sat down to rest.
Welkener leaned in close, placed a comforting hand to her client's face and said, "Does that feel better?"
The patient responded the only way it could.
It licked Welkener on the cheek.
"That's something that didn't happen when I was treating people," Welkener said, returning the affection with a peck on the head of Lakota, a 15 ½-year-old red heeler dog recovering from vestibular disease.
Welkener and her business partner, Sherry Bunch, operate Healing Paws Rehabilitation. On a typical day, Welkener, 49, treats 20 dogs. She occasionally cares for cats. "But they don't cooperate with physical therapy very well," she said.
One afternoon last week, a steady flow of owners brought dogs to Healing Paws. There was a dachshund recovering from hip surgery, a bichon poodle with a herniated disc, an American cocker spaniel "agility dog" with lower back instability, and a big black Labrador retriever rebounding from a staph infection that almost killed it last summer.
Lakota was the old man of the group. The dog was a pup when owner Brent Coder, 39, of south St. Louis, got him while living in Colorado.
"He's meant a lot to me over the years," Coder said. "He's probably my best friend. We've climbed many a mountain together, many fishing trips. He goes everywhere he can with me."
When Coder brought Lakota to Healing Paws a few weeks ago, the dog could barely stand. Vestibular disease, an ear ailment that causes vertigo, had struck the dog as it was recovering from a stroke last year.
"It would just lay on the floor curved in a circle," Coder said. "It couldn't even straighten its head up."
After several weeks of treatment on a treadmill in water, Lakota began to rediscover the spring in his step.
"I'll continue to get him the treatment he needs as long as he's not in pain and is enjoying life," Coder, a creative director at an advertising firm, said. "I'm not married. I don't have kids. I do have a girlfriend. But Lakota's my best friend and my buddy."
Such devotion to pets helps explain why Welkener has seen the animal physical therapy business more than double since she got involved in it about 14 years ago.
For most of her career, Welkener split her work between treating people and animals.
The animal side eventually got prosperous enough that Welkener felt confident in leaving her hospital job to concentrate exclusively on Healing Paws.
Welkener got animal therapy training through the University of Tennessee, one of the few such institutions that offer certification in the practice.
Her experience in treating people made the animal therapy regimen seem like refresher courses.
"Aside from a couple of bony differences, the physiology of dogs and humans is very similar; dogs are just bent over and walking on four legs instead of two," she said.
