Animal Chiropractic

You cannot start here. That is the first thing to understand.

Animal chiropractic is not an undergraduate route or a standalone qualification. Every path into it begins with a full professional doctorate first — and which doctorate you choose changes what you are legally allowed to do afterwards, in ways that differ from state to state.

The two routes in

Certifying bodies accept applicants from exactly two professions. The IVCA also admits chiropractic or veterinary students in their final semester or trimester, provided the degree is completed before the course finishes.

Doctor of Chiropractic

Finish the DC, get licensed, then take a post-graduate animal chiropractic program. You arrive already fluent in adjusting and in chiropractic principle, and you learn animal anatomy, handling and species-specific biomechanics.

Doctor of Veterinary Medicine

Finish the DVM, get licensed, then take the same post-graduate program. You arrive already fluent in animal anatomy and behaviour, and you learn to adjust.

Both routes converge on the same courses and the same exams. They diverge sharply afterwards on what the law permits — see below. A prospective student choosing between DC and DVM because of animals should decide on the strength of the whole career, not on this specialisation alone.

Certification, step by step

The AVCA describes itself as the primary national credential in North America, administered through its Animal Chiropractic Certification Commission. The IVCA is the international equivalent. Both follow the same shape.

  1. Hold a current, active, good-standing licence in chiropractic or veterinary medicine.
  2. Complete a basic post-graduate animal chiropractic program approved by the certifying body's education committee.
  3. Pass that program's exit examination.
  4. Apply to sit the certification examinations.
  5. Pass both a written and a clinical, hands-on practical examination.
  6. Receive certification for a fixed term — three years under the AVCA — and recertify thereafter.
Course length: 210 hours is the floor, not the range. Both bodies set the same minimum. The AVCA requires every approved basic program to provide a minimum of 210 certified hours; the IVCA requires a minimum of 210 hours of classroom and laboratory instruction plus home study. No approved basic program sits below that, and some sit above — Healing Oasis publishes 226. Minnesota separately requires a program of at least 210 hours with a minimum of 30% delivered in person and hands-on. Coursework typically covers anatomy, neurology, biomechanics, pathology, physiology, chiropractic principle, rehabilitation, ethics and legalities, with laboratory work in palpation, adjusting technique, topography, dissection and safe animal handling.
Education and certification run on two different clocks, and they are easy to confuse. Step one above is about being certified, not about enrolling. The IVCA admits chiropractic and veterinary students in their final semester or trimester provided the degree finishes before the course does. Parker admits senior students from trimester seven. Cleveland University-Kansas City states that its own chiropractic students within roughly six months of graduating are eligible to enrol at Options for Animals. None of that changes the certification requirement itself: the ACCC/AVCA requires a current, active licence. You can begin the education before you are licensed. You cannot hold the credential before you are licensed. One thing that does attach at enrolment rather than at licensure: doctors currently enrolled in an AVCA-approved program are eligible for complimentary AVCA membership, applied for through the association's forms page. It is the earliest point at which any of this becomes free, and it is not mentioned on the pages a prospective student would normally read — see the AVCA entry on the organizations page.

The part that catches people out

Certification is not permission. It is a voluntary credential from a non-government body. What you may actually do with it is set by state law, and state law varies more here than almost anywhere else in chiropractic.

Some states restrict animal work to veterinarians outright.

Others permit certified chiropractors to treat animals but require a referral from a veterinarian on file. Others add registration, fees and separate continuing education on top of your ordinary licence renewal.

Two real examples. Minnesota requires a qualifying program of at least 210 hours, registration with the state board, a $200 initial application and $100 annual renewal, six additional hours of animal-specific continuing education every year, a veterinarian's referral kept in the animal's record — and, if you treat animals and humans in the same building, a posted sign in reception and a separate non-carpeted room for adjusting animals. Oklahoma requires registered animal chiropractors to complete 20 hours of AVCA-certified continuing education every three years, on top of the 16 hours a year the ordinary licence already demands.

Check the board rules for the state you intend to practise in before you enrol in anything. Not the state you are studying in. The rules that matter are the ones where you will work, and a program that qualifies you in one jurisdiction may not clear the bar in another.

Every AVCA-approved basic program, in one place

Search for animal chiropractic certification and every result on the first page is owned by somebody selling a course or the credential itself. Nobody publishes the comparison, because everyone who could is in it. So here it is — the full list of programs currently approved by the AVCA education committee, taken from the AVCA's own published listing rather than from any program's marketing.

Program Location Hours Format Stated emphasis
Options for Animals Wellsville, Kansas, and a UK location 210 minimum, plus home study Five modules of about four and a half days, taken in order, Wednesday morning to Sunday noon. Completable in about five weeks or spread across up to two years Also runs a separate advanced certification. On both the AVCA and IVCA lists
Parker University
Parker Success Academy		 Dallas, Texas 210 Five modules of three days. Two days on campus, third at an offsite equestrian centre Equine and canine
Healing Oasis Wellness Center Sturtevant, Wisconsin 226 Five modules — one distance-learning, the rest face to face, Wednesday afternoon to Sunday afternoon Functional and clinical neurology; small and large animals
Health Pioneers Institute Naperville, Illinois 210 Five modules, Wednesday to Sunday, except module five which runs Tuesday to Sunday Chiropractic philosophy with functional neurology and applied kinesiology
Animal Chiropractic Education Source
ACES		 Meridian, Texas not verified Online lectures with in-person labs on flexible dates. ACES describes itself as the first AVCA-approved online animal chiropractic education not verified
Veterinary Chiropractic Learning Center
VCLC		 Paris, Ontario, Canada not verified not verified not verified
Backbone-Academy Kalbe, Germany not verified not verified not verified
How to read this table. The order is not a ranking and carries no judgement — it is not sorted by hours, cost, size or anything else that could be mistaken for a verdict. Blank cells say "not verified" because we have not confirmed them from a primary source, not because the program withholds them; every one of these programs publishes more on its own site and you should read it. Tuition is deliberately absent from every row. We found figures circulating that turned out to belong to a different course at the same institution, and a wrong number about somebody's money is worse than no number at all. AVCA program approval is granted in two-year periods, so this list changes — check the AVCA's current listing before enrolling in anything.
One detail nobody puts in a brochure. Parker publishes physical requirements for its program: you need to stand, squat and lift at least 50 pounds unassisted, and step up unassisted onto adjusting bales two and a half feet high. That is a real and reasonable demand of this work, and a student deserves to meet it before paying a deposit rather than on the first morning of a module.

The two bodies do not approve the same programs, and that is a decision nobody flags for you.

The AVCA approves seven basic programs — the seven above. The IVCA accredits two: Backbone Academy, which it lists for Germany and Australia, and Options for Animals, which it lists for the UK and the USA. Only those two appear on both lists.

If you expect to practise only in North America, that difference may never matter. If you may practise internationally, or want to keep the option open, then choosing a program is often also choosing which credential is available to you at the end — and you can make that choice without ever noticing it, because neither association's website is looking at the other's list. Check both directly before you enrol.

Health Pioneers Institute states on its own certification page that graduates qualify to sit both the AVCA and the IVCA examinations. The IVCA's accredited-schools listing, last modified in May 2026, does not include it. We have not resolved that and are not going to guess — ask the IVCA directly if this affects your decision.

Two things we are still checking, said out loud rather than left out. A third certifying body, the College of Animal Chiropractors (CoAC), appears alongside the AVCA and IVCA in a university library guide and in student club listings, and is not covered on this page yet. Separately, the International Academy of Veterinary Chiropractic (IAVC) runs a prominent five-module basic course and appears on neither the AVCA nor the IVCA approved list as we have checked them. Both need confirming with the bodies themselves before this page could honestly claim to be complete, so it does not claim that.

What we hold on record

Recorded conversations with people practising and teaching in this field, gathered independently between 2020 and 2023. Names appear only once each person has given written permission — several are still outstanding.

Recorded conversations tagged animal chiropractic25
Long-form interviews with practitioners and teachers5
Published entries in the people directory0

Among them: a veterinarian who trained in chiropractic and now teaches animal adjusting internationally in both English and Spanish, working with horses, dogs and small animals; and a chiropractor in his fourth decade of practice with animals. Their episodes cover the history of the field, how the programs are structured, what the day-to-day actually looks like, and why practitioners describe working with a horse as closer to working with a large, non-verbal, emotionally acute child than to working with a pet.

Still to come: the IVCA side of the comparison in the same detail as the AVCA table above, confirmation of where CoAC and IAVC sit, and a state-by-state table of what each board permits. All of it is being compiled from the certifying bodies and from state board publications rather than from the programs' own marketing, which is slower and is the reason cells above still read "not verified" instead of being filled in with something plausible.

If you are looking for a practitioner, not a career

Both the AVCA and the IVCA maintain searchable public directories of currently certified practitioners. Those are the authoritative sources and you should verify any certificate directly with the certifying body rather than taking a practitioner's word for it. This page is about the route into the profession, not a listing of people who provide care.

Sources: American Veterinary Chiropractic Association — certification steps, the approved-program listing and its two-year approval term, the 210-hour minimum, and recertification (listing page last modified 6 April 2026); International Veterinary Chiropractic Association — accredited-schools listing, course prerequisites, the 210-hour minimum and the final-semester student rule (page last modified 26 May 2026); Options for Animals, Parker Success Academy, Health Pioneers Institute and Healing Oasis Wellness Center — their own published program structures; Cleveland University-Kansas City — its published arrangement for students enrolling at Options for Animals; Minnesota Board of Chiropractic Examiners (registration requirements); Oklahoma State Board of Chiropractic Examiners (continuing education). Regulations and program approvals change — verify with the relevant board or with the certifying body before acting on anything here. Last checked July 2026.