Hip Dysplasia and DJD

[MrsBeasley]

At work, we radiographed my dog's 7 year old husky/shepherd mixed blood sibling (different owner) this week and diagnosed severely dysplastic hips with a lot of degenerative joint changes (arthritic). So naturally I was curious and radiographed my dog as well. His hips are not great but have some changes that I would like to slow the progress down as best I can.

I was wondering if anyone else has put their dog on the Royal Canin Mobility Support diet or Hill's j/d and have noticed any improvement in their own dogs.

Also if you are supplementing with Glucosamine suppplements, what types you are using, where you get it, size of pkg and price.

I'm just looking to find the best possible choice and want to keep treatment within my budget as I have two large breed dogs who are both aging and could both benefit from treatment.

[mypooh]

I know what you mean about dogs bones degenerating... it's not fun...my dog is a 7yr old lab shephard mix and she has bad knees and hips...our vet suggested the glucosamine supplements and it's worked great....we get the liquid cherry flavour botle from wal mart (I think it's only like $10 a bottle) we put two tablespoons on her breakfast and one tablespoon on her supper...depends on the dogs weight...but she used to limp and barely walk now she's running and jumping again...Wish you the best and if you have any questions just ask...

[christine chittick]

I would stick with Nutro Natural Chicken or Lamb - or Canidae. Pet place in Oromocto used to sell it, its expensive, and it was the next best thing IMO than going to raw diet. My dogs loved it except my male's stomach didn't take well to the richness...He does better eating lesser quality foods (Pedigree)...I call him Garbage Gut....any how....Don't know much about Royal Canin - but Hills diets are basically fillers (corn I believe is the first ingredient...) Plus, it stinks like fish and from my experience with Hills the dog ends up smelling like that too.

Glucosamine/Chrondroiton (sp?) works, but make sure you get the Glucosamine HCI, not the Sulfate. Something about the absorption I think, and that HCI is more potent. A lot of the breeders that I know that have had run ins with HD and DJD just bought the cheaper ones from Shoppers, or anywhere's where they sell them.

[adorabull]

At work, we radiographed my dog's 7 year old husky/shepherd mixed blood sibling (different owner) this week and diagnosed severely dysplastic hips with a lot of degenerative joint changes (arthritic). So naturally I was curious and radiographed my dog as well. His hips are not great but have some changes that I would like to slow the progress down as best I can.

I was wondering if anyone else has put their dog on the Royal Canin Mobility Support diet or Hill's j/d and have noticed any improvement in their own dogs.

Also if you are supplementing with Glucosamine suppplements, what types you are using, where you get it, size of pkg and price.

I'm just looking to find the best possible choice and want to keep treatment within my budget as I have two large breed dogs who are both aging and could both benefit from treatment.

Hey Beasley.

Ill find out from my neighbour what supplement they gave their dog, it came in gel cap form, I think it was more of an anti-inflam, but seemed to work well. go through your catalouge at work, theres stuff UBAVET makes a liquid, i think a gallon for 90 bucks? lasts a year, I guess thats the stuff, my breed club recomends. Its a teaspoon on their food once a day, Well depending on wieght as well of course.
link http://www.ubavet.com/ try this, best bang for your buck and vet quaility too, maybe able to get a discount as well?

[MrsBeasley]

Thanks adorabull, I didn't know they made other products other than bandage material. I'll check that out on Monday to see if I can get it through our supplier and use it in my comparison. I like the idea of the ubavet plus as it also contains the greenlipped muscle as the Mobility support does.

[new424]

On the advice of our vet, we used this stuff for our pooch for a couple of years:
http://www.corta-flx.com/pages/001product_cortaflx_sol.html

We bought the equine formula, which is much cheaper than the canine formula and our vet figured out the dosage for us.
We paid about $100 for a 1Qt bottle and each bottle lasted our 100lb dog just about a year.
At the time we were using this, it was the best bang for your buck and the improvement in our pooch within a few weeks of starting it was amazing.

As far as foods go, I personally wouldn't feed my dogs anything that lists corn as one of the main ingredients but that's just my own preference for my pooches :D

[Atchbe]

For a dog with joint problems it's a good idea to switch to a grain free food. The foods listed above are very grain heavy which is not healthy for dogs with joint problems as grains have been found to aggravate arthritis. new424, looks like you and I look at food in the same manner :)

Also feeding a canned food over kibble is preferable if you can't feed raw. There are many canned foods that are grain free. For kibbles that are grain free there is EVO and Nature's Variety raw instinct that you can get locally. I normally would take a grain free kibble and mix half and half with a good quality grain free canned food. The best thing about the grain free foods is they may initially cost more, but, you feed a lot less of the food and it leaves the dog feeling fuller longer. Normal dog diet foods are high in Carb's so the owner feels better as they can feed more food with less calories...the sad thing about that is high Carb food is setting your dog up for too many health problems later in life.

I heard the same as new424 about equine supplements, they are very high quality and you get more for your money. I look for a glucosamine supplement that contains sulfate or hcl, chondroitin sulfate, MSM, Vitamin C, Devils claw, hyaluronic acid, manganese or a combination of these. Human glucosamine supplements need to have manganese added to help the dog uptake it into the blood stream.

It's also a good idea to add a good fish body oil to the dogs diet. Because fish oil depletes vitamin E in the body, you should also give vitamin E supplements whenever you supplement with oils of any kind. Give around 400 IUs for a large dog, anywhere from daily to once or twice a week.