Kingman ? With the pain of a strained ligament coursing through a shoulder, O.V. Rowdy waited his turn to see the doctor.

Rowdy — standing alongside his horse-show acquaintance, Ozzie — was in a line of equine patients basking in the sun outside a rural Kingman County horse barn anticipating a chiropractic adjustment that would take away their tenderness.

The horses’ owners compared ailments.

“Sore from the tip of his ears to the tip of his tail,” owner Vicki Crotts, of Turon, said of Rowdy’s sore body that was brought on when he banged a hip on the door of his stall.

This week’s house call and spinal adjustments from traveling equine chiropractor James Ennis meant that Rowdy and Ozzie, along with Oreo and Poco, could get back on the show-horse trail.

While Crotts held the braided rope halter, Ennis moved his gentle probing fingers up and down Rowdy’s spine and neck, pushing deep into the flesh. Then Ennis hit a sore spot. Rowdy bared his teeth.

Ennis, of Quitman, Ark., began his practice as a chiropractor for people 14 years ago. He turned to equine care nine years ago, prompted by his own veterinarian. He makes horse house calls in a circuit across seven states and comes to Kansas monthly.

“There’s not a lot of difference between people and horses,” Ennis said as he adjusted the kinks along both sides of Rowdy’s backbone.

“What we’re doing is restoring normal skeletal joint function,” he said.

Bruce Patterson holds his horse Ozzie, as James Ennis pulls on Ozzie's tail to stretch the horse's back. Ennis began his practice as a chiropractor for people 14 years ago and turned to equine care nine years ago.

Ozzie, owned by Jane and Bruce Patterson, of Kingman, shows in quarterhorse Western Pleasure and English class.

“He’s a case of off-and-on lameness,” Bruce Patterson said. “There are times when he goes good and other times not good.”

Ennis probed his fingers deep into Ozzie’s sorrel neck; the horse jerked and reared on hind legs when Ennis hit a sore spot.

As the treatment continued, Ozzie’s bulging brown eyes softened, and he let out a deep sigh of relief in body language that said “Ouch, that hurts, but it feels better, so much better afterward,” Ennis said.

While some people discount the idea of equine chiropractic, it works, said Hutchinson’s Ironhorse Equestrian Center co-owner Lilli Weaver.

“They squeal, buck and bite, but when he’s done they lick their lips,” she said. “Their eyes turn big and soft, and they whisper ‘Oh, thanks.'”