Vanity: Any suggestions for older dog with hip dysplasia?

Vanity | 3-2-2011 | Frantzie

[Frantzie]

Any suggestions on helping a friend's 10 year old 70 pound dog?

[osagebowman]

We sucessfully used acupuncture/chiropractic to resolve a neurological back problem our abused rescue dog developed when she was about 8 years old.

We are using acupuncture/chinese herbs now to treat her for chronic active hepatatis. She’s been in treatment for 17 months now and it has slowed the progression of the disease and given her a good quality of life.

LSAggie (posting on hubby’s account)

[Dr. Scarpetta]

I had a 20 lb dog with the same problem, but she was light enough that I was able to carry her up and down the steps. She lived until 19 and could walk....just slowly.

[panaxanax]

Secret Agent Man is right. Surgery is the only way to fix the problem, depending on the severity of the dislocation. There’s not really anything to do except do your best to keep your dog out of pain.

Cornell University can do hip replacement, but the cost is prohibitive and rarely successful.

We have a 12 year-old Aussie who has had the problem since birth. It is getting worse as he gets older. The Deramax route didn’t work (Liver problems). He is on Tramadol for pain. It sucks because from the hips forward he is still behaves like a puppy.

The day will come soon when we have to make the decision to have him put down, but NOT like one idiot FReeper suggested to “Take ‘im out back, shoot him in the haid.”

[spacejunkie01]

It’s arthritis mainly. These are crystals that form around the joints, same as in humans.

Give the dog a tablespoon in water at least once each day but more if he/she will drink it, of Apple Cider Vinegar. Use the Bragg’s brand. ACV breaks up the crystals and truly gives relief to arthritis pain.

It also clears gallstones for you with discomfort.

[Hot Tabasco]

My dad had a great german shepherd that developed hip problems, which they all do I guess. The day before the family all headed to northern Michigan for the 4th of July holiday, he had me take the dog in to be euthanized.

The reason he did it was because my sisters had little kids that loved to play with the dog and due to the extreme pain the dog was in, dad was afraid one of the kids would pat him hard on the backside and the dog would naturally turn and snap at the child........which he would never have done when healthy.

It was a sad holiday weekend but it had to be done.......

[spacejunkie01]

This is also excellent advise. When dogs gain weight its because they are getting grain in their food and that spikes their insulin causing them to get fat. Most people will typically cut back on their food which makes their dogs VERY hungry but does not solve the problem.

There are some very good grain free foods out. Try Evo; they also have canned which is crucial to give dogs too as it has all the oils in it.

[My hearts in London - Everett]

I agree with you. Some people’s love for their pets goes overboard into unintentional cruelty nowadays.

[TheRake]

Go to Costco and buy extra strength move free. Worked wonders for our golden. She likes the peanut butter we give it with too.

[thackney]

We got a lot of relief using Rimadyl. It gave our dog a couple more years of good life.

https://www.rimadyl.com

[Titan Magroyne]

The last time I had to deal with an arthritic doggie was a decade ago, tho the moment is fast approaching for one of my current girls.

Back then my vet recommended buffered baby aspirin until the Perna Plus (New Zealand green-lipped mussel) effects kicked in. When I saw how my old collie perked up, I located the human-dose Perna Plus for myself. Problem is, local supplement stores around here no longer carry it. Last time I looked at the website, the manufacturer DaVinci Labs had a bug up their rear about buying the product only thru medical pros. The stuff is good as supplements go, but I’m not jumping thru (tedious) silly (expensive) hoops to acquire that when I can walk into WalMart 24-7 and walk out 2 minutes later with Glycoflex. Without a medical office visit to boot!

Even buffered aspirin is hard on a dog’s tummie & don’t ever give it to a cat. With that dog I found tolerance to it at first, then more tendency to puke as the Perna took effect. Conveniently enough, I stopped dosing aspirin after 2 weeks or so.

Good luck to your friends and their dog. I am so happy they return their faithful companion’s loyalty. I fear I couldn’t afford the same, and it’s gonna kill me when the time comes.

[Recovering Ex-hippie]

My doggie Lola had weekly massages by a massage therapist friend of mine during her last year..she was 15 when she died.....It did not change the arthritis, but it releived much compensatory muscle pain and stiffness.

[I cannot think of a name]

We've owned a lot of dogs during the last 30 years. For some reason we've had many with hip dysplasia and arthritis. Most of the dysplasia dogs had hip surgery, with varying results. Arthritis in a dog is almost as heartbreaking as dysplasia.

After numerous surgical treatments, prescription drugs from the vet, and numerous home remidies, we have found one the works the best:

Glucosamine Chondroitin

I am not kidding. We have two 10 year old sisters, one with dysplasia and one with arthritis. The one with arthritis started getting stiff again about a year ago. I thought, “well I guess that stuff stopped working.” I was talking to my wife about it and she said, “oh, she seemed to be itching a lot so I stopped putting the Glucosamine in her food a couple of weeks ago to see if that made any difference.” We went back to giving it to her and she perked right back up.

I have absolutely no idea how or why this stuff works - but it does. Even our vet said keep using it, and that he gives it to one of his dogs as well.

[AnAmericanMother]

No way Kipling wrote that. An American wrote it (because of the vocabulary - Kipling was very English English and found American English interesting but very foreign), and somebody much more recent than Kipling as well. There are hiccups in the meter that Kipling never would have made either - he was a master craftsman and very meticulous.

With all that said, here is a poem about losing a dog that Kipling did write:

The Power of the Dog

There is sorrow enough in the natural way
From men and women to fill our day;
And when we are certain of sorrow in store,
Why do we always arrange for more?
Brothers and sisters, I bid you beware
Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.

Buy a pup and your money will buy
Love unflinching that cannot lie--
Perfect passsion and worship fed
By a kick in the ribs or a pat on the head.
Nevertheless it is hardly fair
To risk your heart to a dog to tear.

When the fourteen years which Nature permits
Are closing in asthma, or tumour, or fits,
And the vet's unspoken prescription runs
To lethal chambers or loaded guns,
Then you will find--it's your own affair--
But ... you've given your heart to a dog to tear.

When the body that lived at your single will,
With its whimper of welcome, is stilled (how still!)
When the spirit that answered your every mood
Is gone--wherever it goes--for good,
You will discover how much you care,
And will give your heart to a dog to tear.

We've sorrow enough in the natural way,
When it comes to burying Christian clay.
Our loves are not given, but only lent,
At compound interest of cent per cent.
Though it is not always the case, I believe,
That the longer we've kept 'em, the more do we grieve:
For, when debts are payable, right or wrong,
A short-term loan is as bad as a long--
So why in--Heaven (before we are there)
Should we give our hearts to a dog to tear?

[AnAmericanMother]

Sounds like pain relief is what we're talking about here, since surgery really is the only option to correct the underlying cause.

I have found that swimming is a good way for the dog to gain muscle strength without weight bearing on the affected joints.

And while doggie massage sounds really silly and indulgent, it is very effective and my dogs seem to enjoy it.

[pops88]

I second the NZ Green Lipped Mussel. It was an arthritis research break through when I was living in NZ about a decade ago and the research was done on dogs. I’ve found very few know about it in the U.S. I later had a German Shepherd discovered to have bad hips. The vet recommended 3 Green Lipped Mussel capsules a day. The dog had a very noticeable limp. I swear, the limp was gone in under a week! I had a bad knee I took glucosamine and chondroitin for and it didn’t help. After the mussel worked so well for the dog, my husband and I tried it. In just a couple days I noticed a big improvement and was pain free in about a week. Two weeks ago I shipped my husband about a 6 month supply since he’s been in and out of the country. He starts to notice a difference if he’s off it a while. I buy “Sea Mussel” by “Now” from Amazon. It’s reasonably priced. When I searched online years ago, there were a lot of companies trying to capitalize on the “New Zealand” tag and make big bucks. I also never have problems with it repeating on me and tasting mussel all day like some other products I’ve tried. I hope this info. helps.

[kaylar]

I agree : That was written 1940-1960 by an American writer, or maybe Canadian, definitely not Kipling. I actually got interested enough to google it, and it looks like the poem was listed as "author unknown" until some site ASSumed it was Kipling, and since then that attribution has been copied and recopied. Finally I located this:

Poem credited to a Jane Sears, copyrighted to a Concordia, Missouri veterinary clinic

If this is the same Jane L Sears, it looks like she specialized in early 1960s pulp romance novels starring nurses.

This is my favorite dog poem:

THE CURATE THINKS YOU HAVE NO SOUL

The curate thinks you have no soul;
I know that he has none. But you,
Dear friend, whose solemn self-control,
In our foursquare familiar pew,
Was pattern to my youth -- whose bark
Called me in summer dawns to rove --
Have you gone down into the dark
Where none is welcome -- none may love?
I will not think those good brown eyes

Have spent their life of truth so soon;
But in some canine paradise
Your wraith, I know, rebukes the moon,
And quarters every plain and hill,
Seeking his master... As for me,
This prayer at least the gods fulfill;
That when I pass the flood and see
Old Charon by the Stygian coast
Take toll of all the shades who land,
Your little, faithful, barking ghost
May leap to lick my phantom hand.

-- St.John Lucas

[TexasRepublic]

“Take ‘im out back, shoot him in the haid.”

Maybe someone else’s dog, but not my own. I couldn’t shoot a family member that loves me with every fiber in its body.

[Twinkie]

We had to have our 16 yr. old dog put down. She got down in her hips. I gave her a chondroital/glucosamine OTC for 2 yrs.; it kept her going alright for those 2 yrs. but she got completely down and couldn’t get up even to go to the bathroom. So, we had her put down.

Which was hard to do; because she was in her right mind and young at heart. - If I had it to do over again, I’d preferred that husband taken her down in the river bottom below our house and shot her. The vet & assistant were afraid she’d bite them, so they put a muzzle on her. I hadn’t expected that, but should have - still IT BOTHERED ME! I can’t tell you why; maybe because she was the most faithful and dear, forgiving girl one could ever hope for. My heart is still broken, and I do hope to see her again in a better place.

[AnAmericanMother]

Now that's English (classical references provided free of charge by everybody who read Greats).

The other poem is breezy and sentimental enough to be something that would be written by a pulp romance authoress.

Here's something modern, but I think very effective (and affecting):

MISSING OUR DOGS

Old men miss many dogs.
They only live a dozen years,if that,
And by the time you are sixty, there are several
The names of which evoke remembering smiles.
You see them in your mind,heads cocked and seated.
You see them by your bed, or in the rain,
Or sleeping by the fire by nights
And always dying.

They are remembered like departed children
Though they gave vastly more than ever they took,
And finally you're seeing dogs that look like them.
They pass you in the street but never turn
Although it seems they should,their faces so familiar.
Old men miss many dogs.

- Steve Allen

The only thing I know of Kipling's that he wrote in blank verse were some of his "Epitaphs of the War" - after he lost his only son in WWI. They are very good.

Salonikan Grave

I have watched a thousand days
Push out and crawl into night
Slowly as tortoises.
Now I, too, follow these.
It is fever, and not the fight—
Time, not battle—that slays.

[Twinkie]

“Take ‘im out back . . “

Uh. Is that more of that OBAMACARE type stuff?