Tips for preventing arthritis in your dog
hi my name is dr. Yuri Burstyn I’m a
veterinarian in Vancouver BC and I’d
like to welcome you to my series of
practical skills for pet owners
I’m here today with Amber to talk to you
a little bit about how to protect your
dog against developing arthritis that
you can’t prevent it entirely but
there’s certainly things you can do to
delay the onset of arthritis and
mitigate the effects of arthritis and
dogs as they age I just made a video
about how to identify signs of arthritis
in your dog so please go check that out
but let’s say you have a dog that’s a
large breed that’s predisposed to
developing arthritis and we here’s a
golden retriever and certainly they are
quite likely to develop arthritis as
they age so what can we do when she’s
young to make sure that as she ages
yes–you her joint health is going to be
taken care of that she’s gonna be mobile
and active and feel good and free of
pain well there’s a couple things first
of all probably the most valuable thing
we can do to mitigate the effects of
arthritis is weight control anybody has
had a golden though these dogs love food
Labradors love food really is a lot of
dog breeds I have a bit of a reputation
for being a bit food obsessed and
certainly Golden’s are one of them so
that but the more weight you carry on
your body the more weight your joints
carry the harder they have to work the
sooner they’re gonna wear out so weight
control is probably the single most
important intervention we can make to
help a dog not suffer from arthritis I’m
sorry darling I wish I wish it otherwise
but we can’t just feed you everything
you want
so in weight control
is it can be a little bit of a challenge
in these breeds and certainly feeding
the right foods can help exercise can
help and if your dog is is getting a
little bit overweight you should
probably go talk to your veterinary and
ask them about weight management
strategies but keeping those that
keeping that body light keeping the
weight off the joints is probably the
single most powerful intervention you
can make to help them be comfortable and
functional later in life other things we
can do is fitness so having increased
muscle tone lean body mass
we’ll actually again take the load off
your joints the muscles can take over
some of the weight-bearing function that
would otherwise be transferred onto the
ligaments and the cartilage which is
what wears out in arthritis so being
nice and strong and fits certainly is
protective now that goes hand-in-hand
with weight loss and an active lifestyle
so lots of walks lots of exercise now
exercise requirements will vary by breed
certainly if you have a st. Bernard they
can provide a lot less exercise than a
greyhound a lot less exercise and Jack
Russell terrier so you’re going to pick
the right level of exercise for your
breed but you got to keep you guys
active and I mean everybody knows it’s
important for dogs to go for walks so
many reasons for that and certainly
keeping them fit and healthy and
preventing a thright as’ or slowing down
the development or arthritis is one of
those right sambar loaves or walks
you’re such a good girl
yes you are so what else can we do
and keep our dogs light we can keep our
dogs fit lots of walks based on their
breed in terms of nutrition there’s
certainly been a lot of talk and
literature and among people about using
omega-3 fatty acids for joint health now
the evidence is scientific evidence for
that is pretty weak there’s really the
others been some studies that show of
beneficial effects for mega 3 fatty
acids a lot of those don’t aren’t really
repeatable or haven’t really stood up to
closer scrutiny there’s pretty minimal
evidence for it however it is relatively
safe and cheap so I usually say why not
do it now I do want to be a bit moderate
about this you know I just got back for
the American College of Veterinary
internal medicine symposium where
there’s actually a couple of cases of
toxicity induced by excessive omega-3
fatty acid supplementation they were
quite preventable and unfortunate so
more is not better but a little bit of
omega-3 fatty acids probably won’t hurt
the same goes for glucosamine
chondroitin there was some very
promising studies early on in the human
literature showing that yes this might
help with a joint health and again most
of those studies on up on we’re not
really repeatable with deeper reviews so
the effect is shown to be not
significant
so at this point I don’t recommend
Glucosamine Chondroitin or green lipped
mussel supplements any of that stuff
again people are welcome to give it it’s
probably harmless but you know I can’t
really say with a clear conscience that
it’s gonna be beneficial to your dog but
again it sounds probably harmless so
long as you don’t give a huge amount and
you if you subjectively feel that it
helps your dog go ahead and do it but I
don’t think it is a huge amount of
medical value to it and then again early
identification no diagnosing it early
when early signs of arthritis diagnosed
when it does happen is also really
helpful in preventing too nasty effects
of your joints wearing out and certainly
really useful for managing the quality
of life for these guys okay you wanna
shake shake yeah ohhh what there we go
good shake Thank You amber
so she’s just kind of wondering why are
we sitting here talking to a camera
right you just want to go for a walk
again so maybe I’ll finish things there
early and early diagnosis weight control
fitness maybe some supplementation with
megha 3 fatty acids these are all really
simple things that can work into your
lifestyle in your dog’s lifestyle that
will help them age gracefully keep a
mobile later in life and prevent it read
a lot of this comfort is associated with
arthritis now thank you very much for
watching and that might take amber found
for a walk here and get some more
exercise thank you very much for
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