A Short Story

Many people ask me how AOI came to be, so here’s a short story to give you some insight. 

Eleanor and I both became human osteopaths because we wanted to work with animals, and we started AOI because we experienced first-hand how hard it was to find a good quality animal osteopathy course.

When I graduated back in 1998 courses were nothing short of rudimentary and the only way I could improve was to educate myself through hours and hours of reading and practice, and working alongside supportive vets, farriers, saddlers, and other paraprofessionals. Eleanor’s path wasn’t dissimilar.

After years of self-development as an osteopath and animal osteopath, I moved into the field of education and started Animal Osteopathy International. In 2012, I met Eleanor at the ESO in Kent, where I wrote and developed a master’s degree in animal osteopathy with the help of Adrian Barnes, Bex Morrison and Steven Bettles. Eleanor became the lead lecturer of that programme and together we built a course that was professionally robust and clinically sound.

In 2014, I got involved with the inception of RAMP, with my colleagues Vav Simon and Sonya Nightingale. One of RAMP’s main aims was to improve standards of education for the betterment of animal welfare, not only in animal osteopathy, but in the field of animal chiropractic and veterinary physiotherapy. We also identified that as more courses popped up, the more market confusion ensued. 

With this backdrop, and upon leaving the ESO in 2018, Eleanor and I decided to build Animal Osteopathy International from a CPD provider to a fully-fledged educational establishment and the pandemic gave us the time we needed to focus our attention on the task in hand.

Many people consider AOI to be a school of animal osteopathy, and mostly this is true. But because Eleanor and I also want our students to be unique individuals we teach them other life skills such as how to teach and how to manage and grow their business. In doing so, they can become successful professionals in their own right. This is a part of AOI’s ethos for which we are both very proud.

If you have a story to share about your business, we’d love to hear from you. We’re always looking to support young up and coming businesses with the same ethos as ours.

Have a great day,

Dustie