Recent emphasis on the importance of practicing evidence-based medicine (EBM) can be seen as an opportunity for traditional Chinese veterinary medicine (TCVM) practitioners to participate in the process of validation of acupuncture (AP) and other traditional Chinese veterinary medicine (TCVM) treatments. To do so requires an understanding of how to properly design, conduct and report clinical trials. Of particular importance are a succinct answerable research question, an adequate number of animals, clear inclusion and exclusion criteria, randomization of subjects, blindedness of evaluators, sham treatments, control groups, objective measurements of outcomes as much as possible and statistical analysis of data. Current clinical trial design methods may be well suited to investigate Chinese herbal medicines, but blinding and adequate control groups can be challenging to incorporate into clinical AP trials. Through the use of modifications, such as blinded evaluators and sham AP techniques, these difficulties can be mitigated. Including specific treatments for different TCVM pattern diagnoses, within a biomedical diagnoses , can ensure clinically reliable treatments, transparency and reproducibility of results by other researchers. Reviewing “The Standards for Reporting Interventions in Clinical Trials of Acupuncture (STRICTA)” and adaptations for veterinary TCVM studies, before creating the clinical study design, can ensure that all components are included. Clinical researchers need to be cognizant of the importance of a rigorous study design to ensure high quality results that are clinically relevant, thus improving overall patient care and contributing to the knowledge base of EBM.