If you don’t already you could buy some cod liver oil to put in his meals. It won’t work wonders for his current problems but it’s generally good for joints and could hopefully prevent any further problems If you do that it’d be worth putting it in both dogs’ food to keep them in good shape!

Adorable dogs btw, the picture on the right is hilarious

Glucosamine+Chondrointin works wonders. When I worked at a vet hospital, they would give an injection of it into the joint, and have the client give supplements from then on. Personally, I have used it with my old pitbull (started around when she was 12yrs) and I am sure it was why she managed to live a much more comfortable life for the final couple years. It takes about a week for you to see a difference, 2 weeks and he’ll be a brand new dog.

As for exercise, walking is good, walking in water and swimming is better. The buoyancy puts much less stress on their joints. And for sofa time, maybe try a small platform of some type to halve the distance from the floor and the sofa. My dog wouldn’t use one, but yours might.

I hope he regains his spring in his step! Can’t have a couch potato unable to get on the couch!

Did do manic muncher glucosamine and chondroitin is always my go too. When selecting food for Abbie I particularly chose a brand that had that as an extra because she is a long bodied dog and they are prone to back injuries and the bulky knees to issues as well and I’m using it her whole life as precautionary. They have a food that has 1200mg of glucosamine and chondroitin.

They say exercise helps because it keeps the body in motion. As they say, a body in motion stays in motion. It helps keep the muscles loose and flexible. If he is lounging all day, he will become stiff. Kind of like when you’re sitting all day in an office and you finally get up you feel stiff until you start moving around you loosen up.

I wouldn’t do like a hard exercise with him. He is a senior. But I would take him on daily walks, twice a day. Play some fetch. Stuff like that. I don’t think long distance running is ideal.

OOooOoo yes, I forgot all about the food with it added in! I did that for awhile too, wow, can’t believe I forgot that. It DID work where I didn’t have to do the pill supplements. And I agree, I wouldn’t even consider jogging with him at his age. My Sheba went on a long romp by herself one day, when we went looking for her, she was about a block away and barely able to walk. It took months for her to recover from that, the first 3 days she couldn’t even walk by herself. Dogs just don’t realize how much exercise is TOO much. And if Zeus is anything like Sheba playing fetch, you’ll have to be the one to stop that session, because they will keep on chasing that ball until they collapse.

Oh yes I agree stop after a bit for a rest period with fetch. I just enjoy fetch as a good exercise because its a full motion, legs stretched out running but it’s in short distances. So you get more motion than walking and that will help keep those muscles loose and flexible. Be careful though, some dogs won’t stop. I learned that the hard way with Abbie. She got so out of breath she got wobbly. She just has that really high fetch drive. So make sure to pay attention on signs your dog is getting tired and take a break

Abbie is on Merricks grain free/gluten free food. It really is a great food. They use whole products and everything is grown and made in Texas.
If you are wanting to look for another brand just look on the bag and it will tell you if it has the added glucosamine and chondroitin and how much.

The supplements definitely help. My dog takes them. Poor thing can’t walk long distances any more, but we do carry her to the park so she can walk around for a bit. If we didn’t, she would be tired out before we even got there. Keep in mind she is 14 1/2.

I think if you’re going to do any exercise with your dog, be sure to start out slowly. I agree with the others, sometimes dogs just don’t know when they are overdoing it. You need to be the one who controls the gradual increase in activity.

And it’s the Merricks grain free food that has the 1200mg. I just switched her and Brevin from Organix and it only had like 125mg. But I switched because they changed some ingredients and Brevin is starting to show signs of allergies to the food (itching, boogers) so I decided to try a grain free and since Abbie is getting older I might as well up the glucosamine and chondroitin too. Ad Merrick just seems to have everything I really like. Real meats, grain free, added glucosamine and chondroitin. So I got it lol

I’ve always wanted to go grain-free… but short of having it delivered here, or driving 2 hrs, it just wasn’t a good option for us. I just ended up using Pedigree.

I hated watching my Sheba physically going downhill too. She was sharp in the mind and she wanted to play fetch, she literally would struggle to get up and bring the damn ball to us. I wanted to assist her trip to the rainbow bridge much sooner, but it was really difficult to even consider when she was eating fine and getting up searching for the last place she left the ball and throw it to us demanding we throw it for her.

When she began only picking the ball up and chewing it a few times before laying her head down to rest, we finally gave in and sent her on her journey on the 14th of this month. She was 2 months and 2 days from 15yrs old.

Hopefully Zeus still has a few years ahead of him of much tv watching!

No negative effects MD. Abbie has been on it her entire life from 8weeks old.

MD, Chewy.com has free shipping on all orders over $49. That way you don’t have to pay for prime. If you already have prime then now you have a backup website that offers free shipping if Amazon were to run out lol

Chewy is same price as Amazon too. Forgot to add that

Keep in mind to transition him really slowly to the new food. Especially if there is a huge difference in food quality as it can give him a GI upset. What food does he eat right now? And you will notice he won’t eat as much of it. That’s not because he doesn’t like it, it’s because it’s so nutrient dense he won’t need as much food before getting full and he will stay full longer. Also, you will notice a huge difference in his ummm output lol Abbie only poops once a day! So you’ll be feeding less and picking up less mess too. Lots of benefits

Glucosamine is magic! I had my old dogs, Sarge and Bear, on it for years. I started it when they were 7 (Sarge) and 10 (Bear). Sarge was over 100 lbs in his prime, purebred European line German Shepherd. There was no history of hip problems in his lineage, but he hurt himself playing when he was young and arthritis eventually developed. The arthritis developed after I already had him on glucosamine and so it set in very slowly. He lived to be 13. Bear was the reason we started them on glucosamine because she started getting arthritis in her back end, Sarge was preventative since he was a large dog. She lived to be 17 and we didn’t have to give her any other supplement or pain killer to treat the arthritis until she was 15.

We used human glucosamine capsules and they got 2 a day at the beginning. Capsules are the easiest to give because of the sugary coating – I never knew a dog that didn’t take it just as is and thought it was a treat. If it is a regular pill you will have to put it in something to trick them. We tried the dog versions, but we had to try to hide it in peanut butter (no flavored versions at that time in our area) and the vet just told us to go back to the human capsules because there’s not much difference.

Ok great blue buffalo is a good food too so he shouldn’t have much trouble switching. Blue was definitely in my top three when choosing Abbie’s food. It was between Merrick, Wellness CORE, and Blue Buffalo

And I hope Zeus gets to feeling like a 6 year old again really soon!