Chiropractors seem subject to a derision usually reserved for those who practice politics or multi-level marketing. The mind, then, buckles at imagining what N. Daniel Martin had to endure in his lengthy professional life. Consider the hackneyed witticisms of every cocktail party and class reunion, the wisecracks (pun not intended) of every bring-your-parent-to-school day, the smirk at the passport office as the clerk reads aloud the “Occupation” section of his application. Because Martin was not only a chiropractor; he was an animal chiropractor.
Any future biography of “Dr. Dan” shall surely begin with the line: “He started off as a human chiropractor.” The career change happened in the early ’90s. Dr. Dan bought into a racehorse only to note, just before the warmup and race, that the filly needed an adjustment. “I could do that,” he thought, and the future was set in motion, swift and sure-footed.
In the 1990s, Dr. Dan ran afoul of the colleges of both veterinary and chiropractic medicine, as the two institutions perceived him as an encroachment on their turf. But Dr. Dan persevered, undeterred by untrodden land. In time, he would help certify others in this profession that demanded both a torquing strength and pinpoint precision, the equanimity of knowing that something that can hurt you won’t.
He worked on dogs, cats, horses (both miniature and regular sized), cows, donkeys, alpacas, goats, pigeons and a bearded dragon. “Anything with a spine,” he would say, since all endoskeletons operate on the same basic premise; and isn’t there something divine in knowing that we — on a structural level — are interchangeable with a thoroughbred or a hedgehog, koala or caribou?
He did not have a website, did not advertise. He did not tape posters to telephone poles. But the whispers of the paddocks and dog parks are hard to silence, and one imagines the front of Dr. Dan’s office on 126th Avenue to be like the ramp up Noah’s Ark before it pushed off.
Grief is conveyed through cliché; their familiarity gives us comfort within the awful mysteries of death. But the singularity of Dr. Dan forbids platitude, as demonstrated by a few highlights from tributes left behind on his online obituary:
Our three Border Collies have since passed, and now I can take comfort in knowing that Dr. Dan is up there looking after them again!
(We) would drive to the underground parking area and wait for Dr. Dan to come down and perform the adjustment in the back of our van.
Dan, affectionately known as “magic hands,” worked on me, our horses and our dogs.
When his daughter was asked for an image of her father that will linger in her mind, now that he himself has pushed off, she spoke of a barn: light through the rafters, the scent of hay, sawdust swirling underfoot, as her father leans against the shoulder of a great horse, a sharp inhale from them both, and then the pressure is applied, to fix what is wrong, to set it right.
Lost Ones is a new series honouring local legends and unsung heroes who’ve recently passed. To recommend someone whose story deserves memorializing, email [email protected].
This article appears in the June 2025 issue of Edify
