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For those who don't know me, Jesse is our oldest dog.
She is 13.5 years old and has been with us since she was 5 weeks old. It seems like she's been a part of our lives forever. Jesse is a Lab/Shepherd mix, although looks very much like a Lab. Except for her funky ears.
When Jesse was about 5, she was extremely over weight and seemed to be having some trouble with her joints. We took her for an exam and x-rays revealed that she had very bad hip dysplasia. Both hips were badly affected but her left was particularly bad. On her left side, her femoral head is barely covered by the acetabulum. Even our vet was amazed that she hadn't dislocated it at that point.
But Jesse was pretty much living as a normal dog. She was doing the typical bunny hopping but other than that, seemed to be doing just fine. She was a very active dog, loved to go on long walks and hikes and most of all loved to chase her tennis balls. Since Jesse was doing so well, we decided not to pursue surgery as a treatment option for
her.
We thought we'd try a few things first and then if that didn't work, we could always fall back on the surgical options. First and foremost, we had to get some weight off of her. She weighed about 100 lbs and she was visibly obese. So the diet started. It took about a year but she dropped down to about 68 lbs, which she still holds steady at today. She looked wonderful and as she lost weight, her mobility improved as well.
Along with the diet, we added the usual joint supplements to Jesse's regimen. I didn't know much about this stuff back then so she was on Cosequin and that's about it.
Throughout the years other things have been added to her daily regimen, including MSM, fish oil, Vit C, Vit E, pycnogenol and SOD.
Many of those things seemed to work very well for her for a while but eventually, her HD just seemed to start getting worse and it was definitely taking it's toll on her. She was still a very active, happy dog but her joints were starting to give her more problems.
New x-rays several years ago showed that she was developing arthritis in her shoulder, mostly due to the weight compensation from her HD. Normal dogs distribute their weight about 60% on the front. We were told that Jesse probably carries more like 80% on her
front end and that was starting to cause some problems. So we added a few more things to her daily routine. A heated bed and an elevated food and water bowl. At that time we also did Adequan injections on her and those helped alot.
Through it all, Jesse remained a very happy, active dog with a completely normal life. She did not let her bad joints slow her down. I think, as with alot of this stuff, it's much harder on us owners to think that our dogs may be suffering.
But we learned to let Jesse do what Jesse wanted to do and she was perfectly happy with that.
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