Feeding a dog oily fish for his joints

NellieNewbie

Our dog is 12 now and in the last year has started to show a bit of weakness in his back legs. We've been to the vets and he's now on meloxicam, but I wanted to give him some extra help through his food.

He's on [FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Harringtons Complete Dog Food (Lamb and Rice) and I've been adding some pilchards in tomato sauce or some sardines in olive oil to this every day for about a month.

He loves these combinations, but should I be worried about adding the oily fish every day?
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Dollardog

My vet told me that she had had good results and so had customers by giving a Pedigree joint stick a day as they have glucosamine and green lipped mussel powder in them. I looked on the pack, the large ones actually have 500 mg of glucosamine.

I also give my dog two propolis capsules a day, I found they used to do my other dog a lot of good and I was able to cut the vet's tablets right down to one every so often. If you would like some information I can send you some but would need your email address - get a hotmail one if you like - as there is too much to put on here.

krlyr

I believe tomatoes can aggravate arthritis so I would avoid the ones in tomato sauce personally.
Rather than feel oily fish daily, I give my two salmon oil in their food. One thing you need to consider is that it can affect the way the body stores vitamin E so if giving it regularly you need to supplement vitamin E too, don't know if this would be the case with oily fish too.

This is based on arthritis but many of the supplements help with other joint conditions, I have used several for my previous GSD who had hip dysplasia - http://dogaware.com/health/arthritis.html

NellieNewbie

It's just typical that he'd love the tomato sauce one the most! :cheesy:

I did know about tomatoes and arthritis in humans, but for some daft reason it never went through my mind when researching information on dogs. :cheesy:

The trouble is that just as with humans, when it comes to supplements there is too much choice and I know it can be hit and miss, but a recommendation is a good place to start, so thank you to everyone who replies.

krlyr

For a start, I know many people have had good success with devil's claw and green lipped mussel. One I've been hearing about more and more recently is turmeric/curcumin, several people raving about its effects, so that's one of my list of things to try if my two start to stiffen up as they get a bit older.

rising_from_the_ashes

I used to give Ben green lipped mussel, chrondroitin & glucosamine & it made a big difference - I was able to reduce the amount of medication he was on by a pretty substantial amount and he was comfortable and enjoying life again. HTH

NellieNewbie

I've heard about all of these too except turmeric/curcumin.

It doesn't surprise me though about turmeric/curcumin because there is a lot of history of using natural hot spices as pain relief. I can't take regular anti-inflammatory drugs, so I use capsicum cream for arthritis in my hands. I think it is the heat that helps most.

Someone recommended Yumove Triple Action Dog Joint Supplement and that contains -
150mg Triple Strength Green Lipped Mussel for pain relief
250mg Pure Glucosamine with natural dog Chondroitin and Manganese for joint support
750 mcg Hyaluronic acid and Vitamins C & E for general mobility.

Cost is a big issue for me and thankfully my dog is small (just under 10 kg), so a 2 month supply would be about £9/£10.

Giving a joint stick as a treat sounds like a great idea too and tbh I never believed that any treat could really be healthy until Dollardog mentioned the ingredients of the Pedigree ones.I hate the idea of my dog being in pain, but I can't afford to buy lots of things to try which is why I was trying to use his food as a way of helping him.

krlyr

If you want a dog-specific, combination product then I've heard loads of good reviews of JointAid actually. Forgot to mention it as I tend to just use human supplements due to the size of my two (Healthspan has good prices for those if you waant to go down that route)

harrys_nan

http://www.vetvits.co.uk/dog-supplements/flexi-joints-for-dogs/productdetail-p15875-c1786997.aspx?referrer=GOOGLEPPC&gclid=CPuk8fjh7a4CFWwntAodwwq3IQ

This is worth a try, I did notice a difference in my old dog

gettingready

Zara gest Salmon Oil , she has a bioflow collar and also gets Ester C (1 tablet of 1000mg per 10kg of the dog weight, available from Boots)

Ester C info:

http://www.yourdoghealth.com/dog_ester-c_study.htm

As I started her on Ester C and got her a bioflow collar at the same time - I am not sure which one (or a combination of both) have helped but she is much better and is not on metacam or any other pain relief... for a year now.

dawnie1972

Milo has a muscle/tendon/ligament (not really sure what it is) problem in one of his legs, he used to have joint aid but then we found a fantastic dry food called Symply - I started to give Milo the Symply Senior and the difference was amazing - its available online from Pets Corner stores and i opted for this as opposed to the joint aid as the Glucosamine etc was higher content.