natural arthritis treatment for old dog

[scottishmommy]

Any ideas? I really don't want to put my dog on rymadil. She's 130 lbs, English Mastiff, 8 years old.

[Alyantavid]

We give a glucosamine/chondroitin supplement to our dog. We got them at Costco and they're made for dogs and are liver flavored. You give however many based on weight.

It helps a ton for him. He can get up and down easier and move faster.

[Ola_]

I give glucosamine/chondroitin also (3 pills, which is the adult human dosage, for my 75 lb dog). We also use fish oil supplements as the Omega-3 are a natural anti-inflammatory (these he gets 4 per day, but you can go up to 1 per 10 lbs of weight if needed). This is for our greyhound, he's a retired racer so his joints took a beating during his former life and I think they need a little extra care. He's doing very well so far, he just turned 11 last month. Oh, and keeping him slim is very important IMO, as any extra weight makes it that much harder on the joints.

Here is some good info also with some other things you can try:
http://dogaware.com/health/arthritis.html

[greenmagick]

MSM and DGP (dog gone pain - an herbal supplement) work great for my dog and came highly recommended to me by a woman who runs an animal rescue and has used that combo many times with success.

(DGP retails at 40 a bottle, but you can usually get it online much cheaper, amazon is where I usually get mine)

[fuller2]

My 17-year-old very arthritic guy is on Dasuquin now and it seems to be helping - he can sit a bit and before he really couldn't. I had him on cetyl M before and that helped at first too.

I also had very good results with acupuncture -- stopped only because it's expensive. I want to try it again soon.

I should also say that I was afraid of Rimadyl too, but I saw immediate results when I first tried it, and my dog has now been on it for more than a year and his liver values are actually better than they were when he started. (I give him milk thistle 5 days/week for a liver tonic.) He is an American Eskimo/spitz mix of some sort, and I have to say that the Rimadyl helps him a LOT. I took him off it for a few days and he was really, really hurting. A friend with a lab did have problems with Rimadyl and had to stop, so I think the breed of dog matters. (labs seem to have the most problems)

[Leersia]

Just wanted to second the idea that some dogs do well on Rimadyl and some do not. Ours did not, and we took her off. I'm still looking for something that might help her. . . I have friends who have told me that Rimadyl really did help their dogs tho.