Daisy, 9, receives acupuncture treatment from Dr. Nancy Brandt, a practitioner of complementary and alternative veterinary medicine. Photos by John Gurzinski. Ulk Dei Monti Della Laga, a 4-year-old German shepherd also known as Baron, gets treatment last month from Dr. Nancy Brandt at the National Care Institute. Dr. Sidney Carter, a chiropractor who once worked on humans, has turned his practice to animals. Here, he treats Geronimo during a house call in Pahrump.

You might think that what Dr. Nancy Brandt is about to do to Daisy -- stick the highly alert ragamuffin cat full of needles -- would require the veterinarian to wear protective gear akin to that worn by a hockey player.

Surely this isn't going to be Dr. Seuss' relaxed and reasoned rhyming Cat in the Hat, but rather a rambunctious writhing cat in a panic.

And yet when the needles are inserted into Daisy's head, paws and back to the soothing accompaniment of the Las Vegas vet's gentle, "That's OK," the 9-year-old cat doesn't hiss, snap or claw at Brandt.

She just sits there on the treatment table, a feline kind of metallic porcupine, and yawns. And then she purrs.

For 20 minutes, 18 needles remain stuck in Daisy. At the 15-minute mark, she appears to nod out.

"She's been like this during a treatment since I first started with Dr. Brandt a year ago," said Daisy's owner, Angela Kassan, who remained in the treatment room throughout the acupuncture. "To be honest, I was shocked. But she seems to understand intuitively that we're trying to help her."

Daisy has liver problems that Brandt has treated both with traditional medicines and with complementary and alternative veterinary medicine, CAVM, a diverse and unrelated group of treatment methods that create considerable controversy in the veterinary profession.

Proponents of CAVM assert that it's holistic and considers the whole patient, while contending that standard veterinary medicine practices do not take advantage of all possible beneficial alternatives.

Acupuncture, an ancient practice developed by the Chinese that purportedly treats disease and pain by piercing parts of the body with needles, doesn't come cheaply. Brandt charges as much as $100 per session. Brandt's chiropractic treatments of animals, where she manipulates body joints to restore normal nerve function, can cost about the same.

"Daisy takes her drops much better after she has the acupuncture and manipulation," Kassan said. "She just gets more mellow."

Brandt said that what she's trying to do through her needling is ensure that the energy the Chinese call Qi (pronounced chee) flows smoothly through specific pathways called "meridians."

"It's very complex and difficult to explain how it works," Brandt said.

The reason that may be, according to veterinarian Dr. David Ramey, is because it doesn't work.

"There is no objective evidence, no study that shows that alternative treatments have a reliable, repeated demonstrable positive effect on animals," said Ramey, a California veterinarian who has written articles for the Web site Quackwatch and the National Council Against Health Fraud. "Basically, they are about as effective as patting an animal. They may be comforting to an animal, but I'm not sure people should be comfortable paying for such treatment."

Ramey acknowledges it's not necessarily the case that alternative therapies have no value.

"Neither is it the case that established treatments are always perfect or that science is infallible," he said. "Yet, to abandon scientific validation as the gold standard of therapy is to invite chaos. Only those treatments that meet the strict tests applied to mainstream medicine should be kept."

Vets who use alternative therapies such as acupuncture and chiropractic manipulation don't seem overly concerned that the treatments can't be supported by the scientific method.

Dr. Sheila Billingsley, a Las Vegas vet who took a six-month course in veterinary acupuncture in San Diego, admits she doesn't know "how or why it works."

"But there are few animals in which I haven't got a positive response," she said. "It's really wonderful. Dogs start sleeping better, going out the doggy door again. I'd have to agree that research doesn't explain it. Generally, it doesn't work right away. The animal needs more than one treatment."

Ramey dismisses this kind of "anecdotal evidence."

"The truth is," he said, "is that if the animal gets better after those treatments, it probably would have gotten better on its own without the expense. But people love their animals and will try anything to make them feel better."

Dr. Christopher Yach, president of the Nevada State Board of Veterinary Medicine, calls alternative therapies for animals "a great thing."

"Do I understand it?" Yach said. "No."

On a chilly December morning in Pahrump, 75-year-old Willie Sutton led Geronimo, a seemingly gentle palomino, over to where chiropractor Dr. Sidney Carter stood. Carter said he detected in his movement a stiff neck and irregular gait.

A former chiropractor to humans, Carter took training in veterinary chiropractic in Texas. Animals, he believes, appreciate being manipulated more than humans.

"They just want to get better, and they don't talk," he said. Some horses, he explained, need monthly treatments. Others may need chiropractic therapy less frequently. "It all depends on what people see in how their animals are moving and acting," he said.

Despite the cool climate, Carter was soon sweating as he delivered quick thrusts to Geronimo's back and twisted the horse's head back and forth. To get better leverage, the chiropractor even brought his own stool.

"You like that, buddy, don't you?" Carter said as he pushed mightily on Geronimo's neck.

Ten to 15 minutes after he began the $89 treatment, Carter finished.

"You see the way he's licking his lips," Carter said. "He's feeling better."

Sutton also brought Carter a gray horse named Sundance. The horse's large pink tongue was evident as it licked its lips. Carter then began repeating the thrusts and neck twists he used on Geronimo.

Again, the chiropractor asserted that the animal was happier because of more lip licking after his treatment.

"That's the way you can tell," he said, adding the forward position of a horse's ears is also an indicator.

Sutton agreed that the horses, often used in barrel racing by younger members of the family, are happier and healthier.

"When I was a boy, people would have thought you were crazy if you went to a chiropractor," let alone bring an animal to one, Sutton said. "Times have changed."

Back at Brandt's office, Suzanne Warner waited with her new German shepherd, Ulk Dei Monti Della Laga. It was time, she said, for a chiropractic tuneup of the dog that she has had for just a few weeks.

She calls the dog Baron for short, and says he understands Italian, German, English and Spanish. She said she learned he was coming into her life when her old German shepherd, Tony, was dying.

"Tony was able to send a message to my brain about a new dog coming," said the Boulder City woman, who has installed a special seat belt in her SUV for Baron.

"I saw the image of a red and black shepherd and sure enough, not even a year later, Baron, who is red and black, came into my life."

After Brandt arrived, she squeezed the dog's back and twisted his neck. A couple minutes later she was done.

Warner isn't just relying on alternative treatments to keep him happy. She is also changing his diet to raw foods that Brandt sells.

"If people say that there isn't evidence that alternative treatments ... actually help, all I can say is that I know they've helped my dogs," she said. "And that's all the evidence I need. I'll do whatever I can to keep my animals happy and healthy."