My dog is beginning to show signs of arthritis -

What now?

Don’t be afraid! There is plenty you can do to support your canine friend when they start feeling creaky and stiff in their older age. To start with, the obvious thing is to see your vet and get any source of lameness or discomfort checked out. You can also get an overview of the treatment options on offer and get recommendations from your vet. However, if your pet is in the early stages, and you are only seeing mild signs, you may decide to wait before starting medication and look for other ways to manage matters to start with. The key is to get these management strategies in early, as soon as you notice signs in your friend, to maintain good joint health into their old age.

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Signs to look for:

Stiffness of movement, particularly when getting up from rest. 

Less active on their walks.

Becoming more reluctant to jump up or down from the sofa or the car.

Sleeping more.

Visible lameness.

Don’t expect to see moaning and whining as signs of pain, this is very unusual.

5 ways to support your dog with arthritis naturally:

1. Adapt their exercise. 

By no means should you rest your dog and allow them to give up on their proper walks! Unless your vet advises you for a specific injury, this is generally a bad idea. As your dog ages you may need to adapt their exercise routine, but overall you should aim to keep them moving throughout the day to maintain the health and strength of their muscles. The muscles are absolutely critical to keeping older joints pain-free, they stabilise the joints preventing them from jiggling about (painfully) and you want those muscles strong, toned and supportive. 

Observe your pet, if they’re are struggling to complete the distance they used to manage, cut the mileage of the walks down, but introduce extra, short walks at other times of day. It is much better to introduce 3 x 20 minute walks in a day, than to struggle with the hour long walk once a day. Even more important is to avoid the ‘weekend marathon’ - doing very little during the week but going for a 3 hour family mega-hike at the weekend. I’m sure my readers will recognise the canine character whose sheer enthusiasm will enable them to keep up and appear exuberant for one of these joyous events, only to be completely wiped out for several days afterwards (and sometimes quite sore). They can’t always regulate their own walking and you may have to do the regulating for them. 

Avoid chasing games and throwing objects that encourage high speeds and sudden twists and turns. If a dog finds great value in their ball retrieval, then adapt it to a slow-paced rolling game - feed their joy of bringing that ball back to you, but only by rolling it a couple of metres now and again as you walk along.

Keep the walking surface fairly even, with gentle inclines and declines. Those ups and downs are great for allowing a little extra work for the hindlimb and forelegs respectively, gentle enough that it doesn’t overstrain them. Be aware of incorporating a gentle hill every day if you can.

2. Diet

I will go on about this until the cows amble home.

Dogs should be eating real food. It should look like food. It should be recognisable as actual food!

When we are taking care with our own diet, we know full well that our food should be made of real, unprocessed naturally-occurring items, we wouldn’t fill our plates with honey-crunch-hoops (fortified with blah blah blah).

We must extend this same common-sense to our pets’ food. Our pets should be eating a fresh, unprocessed diet. There is a vast array of complete, fresh diets to choose from; whether raw or cooked. It really couldn’t be easier to get proper food into our pets. You can receive support on this from your holistic vet, who can guide you through the transition. If you are unable to make the switch to fresh food right now, just try and get more unprocessed food in whenever possible. Reduce your pet’s food by a handful and top it with some cooked meat, some tinned sardines or maybe an egg. They will absolutely love it and you will be giving them something so much more nutritious than dry biscuit.

We are all built of what we eat - get on and make some changes and prepare to be pleasantly surprised by the difference.

3. Get yourself a holistic vet.

Obviously I’m bound to say this, but I don’t care! Having a holistic vet on board is of great value, particularly early on when we can make lifelong changes and bring in such gentle techniques to support these animals. During a holistic consultation, we can go through your pet’s life with a fine-tooth comb, making changes and adaptations to make a real difference in the next stage of your friend’s life. Homeopathic and herbal remedies may be prescribed, perhaps also nutritional supplements. Many of my clients report years of extra, active, happy life for their pets, often not requiring pharmaceuticals until much later than expected. And I don’t mean extra years of a sad dog dragging themselves about. I mean dogs that go back to playing with their mates after their owners felt those days were gone. Dogs who wake up with joy every morning ready for their walks. Dogs with excellent quality of life and very minimal and very gentle interventions.

Which brings me to:

4. Acupuncture.

Even after 14 years, I am still amazed by the way my patients respond to regular acupuncture treatment. Firstly, they love it, bounding in to my office eager to get started. Dogs will often doze off during their treatment, making it a heart-breaking decision to disturb them and retrieve my needles. But again and again I am told about patients who are given a new lease of life following our sessions, moving better, playing more and enjoying comfort. I love it! If I could encourage you to try one treatment method for arthritis, it would be acupuncture. To find a veterinary acupuncturist near you, go to abva.co.uk. 

5. Canine occupational health

I’m talking about making adaptations to your home to aid your dog in aging gracefully. Laminate floors are a nightmare for the arthritic canine! I actively encourage my clients to destroy the aesthetic of their living space by making the floor a patchwork of high-friction surfaces. Their dogs thank me with their eyes. 

Car boot ramps, steps up to the sofa, memory-foam beds, shifting around the sleeping arrangements - your dog may benefit from any number of minor changes. Go to caninearthritismanagement.co.uk for great ideas and advice on this.

That’s enough to get you started, no need to make it more complicated. Nothing in this blog is intended to replace advice from your own vet who knows your dog. Please contact them if you are concerned about your pet’s health and follow their advice. But also bring in a holistic vet to your veterinary team, they will usually work on referral from your primary care vet. Have a look at my website and by all means get in touch for an appointment.