What I learned about animal chiropractic by watching the AC guys

When we first opened Animal Chiropractic Education Source, we modelled our training just like all the other schools.  That was 13 years ago.  Since then we have learned a few things that not just we but all the schools were doing wrong.

Yesterday, the company that manages our HVAC systems was at A.C.E.S. Ranch for the fourth time, trying to figure out why the air-conditioning unit in our master bedroom wasn't working.

At A.C.E.S., we have eight HVAC units.

Managing a property like this is an education all by itself.

When we first moved to the ranch, one of the first things we learned was that the previous owners had not exactly left us with a great reputation in the community. They had developed a reputation for not paying people and for treating service providers poorly.

It took us years to rebuild that reputation.  We needed to be KNOWN for what we do FOR the community, not just as the owners of the ranch.

We wanted the people in our community to understand that the people living at A.C.E.S. Ranch now were different.

That took time.

It also meant that when something broke, we didn't necessarily have a list of trusted people to call.

Not long after we moved in, the old HVAC unit serving our master bedroom died. We needed a replacement, but we hadn't yet figured out who we could trust to manage the many systems on the property.

Choosing the cheapest, closest to us was not the best choice.

We were introduced to a man named John, who seemed to be a jack-of-all-trades. As luck would have it, he happened to have a heat pump that would work for the room.

He installed it for us at what seemed like a very reasonable price.

There was just one problem.

The indoor unit was in the attic above one side of the master bedroom, while the outdoor unit was on the opposite side of the house.

So when it came time to run the thermostat wire between the two, the installer chose what appeared to be the shortest route:

Over the top of the house.

At the time, we were replacing the roof, so the roofers were already there. They were more comfortable on that roof than most people are on flat land. In fact, the roof at A.C.E.S. Ranch is something of an adventure in itself. In many places, you can't see the ground from the roof. You see the pasture far below instead.

The wire was run over the roof.

And it worked.

For years. Just like many animal chiropractic practices.

Until it didn't.

The wire eventually deteriorated from years of exposure to the Texas weather and began shorting out.

So yesterday, two HVAC technicians arrived around 9:30 in the morning to replace it.

They came prepared.

They had ladders.

They had tools.

They had experience.

And they spent hours trying to find a way to run the new wire inside the roof so they wouldn't have to go back over the roof.

They couldn't make it work.

So eventually, they decided to do what had been done before.

They would run the new wire over the roof.

At one point, one of the men climbed onto the roof using a ladder we had available. They had placed the ladder farther away from where the wire needed to exit the house because it was a more secure place for the ladder to rest.

That made sense from the ground.

It wasn't as useful once he was on the roof.

He tried to adjust the ladder while standing on the roof, and the situation became increasingly uncomfortable to watch.

It was over 100 degrees outside.

The roof was extremely hot.

He had been working since 9:30 that morning.

His face and neck were bright red.

And honestly, my biggest concern at that point wasn't the air conditioner. The situation began to remind me of some of the Tik Tok videos I see of people "adjusting" animals. I had lost my interest in getting the thermostat line solved and was more interested in getting the man off my roof.

It was whether I was about to watch someone fall off my roof.

He eventually came back down, moved the ladder closer to where he needed it, and tried again.

But then they encountered another problem.

The wire wouldn't cooperate.

It seemed to be catching on something as they tried to get it over the roof. And even after they managed to get it over the top, they couldn't figure out how to get it down the other side and into the outdoor unit.

By this point, they had been working for hours.

They had called another technician for help.

And somewhere around 4:30 in the afternoon, I looked at what they were trying to accomplish and said:

"What if you follow the drain line from that unit out of the house and then drop the new thermostat line into the rain gutters that circle the house?"

There was a pause.

And then they tried it.

When the additional technician arrived, the three of them worked their way around the house.

About 90 minutes later, the new line was in place.

At 7:30 that evening, they finally packed up their tools and ladders and left.

The air conditioner was working.

And I couldn't help thinking about the lesson in what had just happened.

The technicians weren't bad at their jobs.

They weren't lazy.

They weren't incompetent.

In fact, they worked incredibly hard all day.

The problem was that they were trying to solve a new problem by following an old path.

And sometimes, the old path isn't the best path anymore.

That made me think about Animal Chiropractic 101.

When we first opened A.C.E.S. in 2013, we were teaching in a house in an HOA north of Dallas.

We initially ran our labs much like other animal chiropractic programs did.

And on the surface, it worked.

Students came to lab.

We taught them.

We adjusted animals.

They watched us demonstrate what we were teaching.

But we noticed something that bothered us.

Students weren't necessarily going home and seeing animal patients.

They had learned the information, but many weren't yet confident that they could reproduce the results they had watched us achieve.

And there was another problem.

We were exhausted.

At the end of a day of teaching, we might have personally adjusted 20 dogs or 25 horses.

We were demonstrating our expertise over and over again.

The students were watching.

And watching an expert do something can make it look deceptively easy.

We still hear a version of the old philosophy from animal chiropractors today:

"You teach this one the basics, and then I'll teach him or her how to adjust when they get certified."

And honestly, that makes perfect sense when you understand how the old system developed.

The schools taught the fundamentals.

The doctors got certified.

Then they went home and had to figure out how to make animal chiropractic actually work in their practices.

They had to develop their hands.

They had to develop their confidence.

They had to figure out how to apply what they had learned to real patients.

In other words, the education didn't necessarily end with certification—but the responsibility for turning that education into clinical competence largely shifted to the individual doctor.

That was the path.

And for many doctors, it worked.

But we began asking a different question.

What if we didn't make doctors figure it out on their own?

What if the goal of the program was to help them become competent practitioners before they left us?

Moving to A.C.E.S. Ranch changed our thinking.

We began asking:

What if the goal of lab isn't for students to watch us share our expertise?

What if the goal is for students to become the experts themselves?

So we changed the system.

We stopped adjusting the animals that volunteered to come to lab for our students to learn from.

Instead, the students adjusted the animals.

That was a significant change.

The student could no longer simply watch us make an adjustment in a few minutes.

They had to learn how to do it.

They had to develop their palpation skills.

They had to learn how to position themselves and the animal.

They had to make decisions.

They had to develop confidence in their own hands.

They had to experience what it felt like to succeed—and to make corrections when they didn't.

We weren't trying to eliminate the importance of the basics.

We were asking what should come after the basics.

Our answer was:

Practice.

Not someday.

Not after they got home.

Right now in class in front of God and everyone.

And then they could begin to look at what it took to build a foundation for their practices. They didn't have to go home to figure out how to adjust, they could focus on the business aspects of their practices.