Dog - weak back legs - building up

Oddjob

Fire_Fox wrote: »

Maybe try training him? Hold the end or even the whole thing with just a small part sticking out of your hand. If he tries to bite big chunks you put the bone behind your back, repeatedly until he learns being delicate gets him the reward. Otherwise you can feed turkey necks or meaty bird carcasses (ribs and back) which are all very soft bones.

I'll try that with a couple tomorrow.
I don't think our local butcher or even supermarkets would have turkey necks.
When I have a chicken, I give him the back bone but obvoisly that has been cooked, I don't give him the ribs though.

MJ2012

Sally_A wrote: »

The thinking behind this is that raw chicken bones are bendy, only by cooking are they made brittle.

I feed raw chicken wings regularly to my two JR's. Never feed a dog cooked bones - raw are fine but, I always supervise them around bones.

I can also recommend the treats you can get for joints. A friend has a GS with back leg issues and he swears by them. If you are interested, let me know and I will find out the brand.

Lots of good advice here; hydrotherapy is a good option due to the way it can build joint strength without impacting the joints. Also, getting your dog as lean as possible (whilst being healthy) would be a good move.

I've never had this issue so am not qualified other than having dogs for over 20 years but, I swear by raw feeding.

MJ2012

Oddjob wrote: »

I'll try that with a couple tomorrow.
I don't think our local butcher or even supermarkets would have turkey necks.
When I have a chicken, I give him the back bone but obvoisly that has been cooked, I don't give him the ribs though.

Dogs really should not be eating cooked bones.

Oddjob

MJ2012 wrote: »

I feed raw chicken wings regularly to my two JR's. Never feed a dog cooked bones - raw are fine but, I always supervise them around bones.

I can also recommend the treats you can get for joints. A friend has a GS with back leg issues and he swears by them. If you are interested, let me know and I will find out the brand.

Lots of good advice here; hydrotherapy is a good option due to the way it can build joint strength without impacting the joints. Also, getting your dog as lean as possible (whilst being healthy) would be a good move.

I've never had this issue so am not qualified other than having dogs for over 20 years but, I swear by raw feeding.

I gave him 4 of the 6 chcken thighs I bought but even with me holding them, he didn't chew them a lot before swallowing them, with the last two, I thought I would take the meat off, hold the bones and get him to chew them that way, but he wasn't interested.
As for the joint sticks, he has one every night, I started off giving him the Pedigree ones as part of the six week challenge thing they were running. Then someone on here pointed out that the Sainsbury's own brand ones actually have more of the active ingredients in, so he has those now.
I have an appointment with him at the vet's next week, I was going to suggest the hydrotherapy and see what they say. He is on a diet already although he is not drastically overweight anyway, he is losing some steadily.

Thanks for your input.

Oddjob

MJ2012 wrote: »

Dogs really should not be eating cooked bones.

The only cooked bones he has are the very soft ones in the chicken, I cut the knobbly end off the joint bones and he has the ends, and the spine bones are really soft, not at all splintery, you can actually chop them up with a knife very easily, I don't, I just seperate them and put them in his dinner.

Paradigm

Sally_A wrote: »

Cod liver oil capsules are also available, if your dogs joints are creaky.

Be careful with CLO, it's quite high in Vit A which is toxic to dogs in high levels.

Omega 3 fish oil capsules available in all supermarkets are a safer alternative.