Reading up on food and ?

**schteve_d** · 01-11-2005, 04:26 AM

I have two older dogs roughly the same age (ten years old, parted by three months to the day). My Shephard X is alot more active than my Lab X. They share food that is not on meal schedules but there 24/7. I have recently been giving my Lab X glucosamine for mild arthritis and have been thinking about switching foods. For the last few years they have been eating Eagle Pack Adult Maintenance. Now that I check into it, I find that Eagle Pack Senior contains Glucosamine which leads to my question since they share: Should I a: Continue what I am doing (feeding both 10 year olds Adult Maintenance, with one having mild arthritis but not the other) and supplement the one with Glucosamine (at this point I should mention that about 25% of the time he manages to pick it out of his roast beef or cheese slice delivery methond and may be getting less than I hope!) b: Switch both to Senior Formula with Glucosamine, or c: ?
And if I go with "b", do I continue to supplement the symptomatic one with tablets even though the food now contains what I am supplementing him with? Wow, this got a lot more confusing than I had anticipated very quickly!! Thoughts? I know the standard answer (I mean no offence in saying this, read on) will be to "ask my vet", which I did and his answer was roughly a grunt (no kidding, boy sometimes I hate living in the isolated North where one might actually be able to get a second opinion) so any help at all is genuinely appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Steve

p.s. I still can't get my signature to work, any help most appreciated.

**bckrazy** · 01-11-2005, 03:35 PM

um.. I'm not an expert at all on this subject, but I would probably switch both dogs to the Senior Formula with Glucosamine. Even if Tasha doesn't have arthritis, she could develop it as many older, large breed dogs do. It could help prevent the onset of arthritis?

lol, I really don't know...

anyway, it's great that you care for your pups so much!

**Luna** · 01-11-2005, 05:00 PM

Originally posted by bckrazy
um.. I'm not an expert at all on this subject, but I would probably switch both dogs to the Senior Formula with Glucosamine. Even if Tasha doesn't have arthritis, she could develop it as many older, large breed dogs do. It could help prevent the onset of arthritis?

lol, I really don't know... anyway, it's great that you care for your pups so much!

Sounds like good advice, I would have to agree.

**dragondawg** · 01-11-2005, 07:53 PM

because most Labs will more than pig out when given free choice- mine did. A pure Yellow Lab's weight range is 60-70 lbs with females on the low end, and males on the high end. Haven't checked it but probably a Chocolate Lab may be slightly higher, and a Black Lab slightly lower. If your Lab is too heavy then taking the weight off is the best thing you can do to counter any arthritis.

Giving both dogs glucosamine is probably a good idea. Also you should start supplementing their diet with fish oil. Try 2000 mg twice a day. Fish oil has many desirable properties as a supplement.

**wolfsoul** · 01-12-2005, 12:09 AM

Giving glucosamine and/or chondroitin is a good idea. The dog food that has glucosamine in it really doesn't aid any joint problems -- just prevents them. So if you're looking for something to combat joint pain, keep giving supplements. If your dogs don't like the pills, try some liquid glucosamine.

For your sig --- remove the periods I added [img.] src='http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2004-10/845171/budtash5.jpg' width=306 height=229[./img]

**schteve_d** · 01-13-2005, 04:23 AM

Thanks for the help wolfsoul, but I have been trying for the last half hour to try and make sence of what you said about the signature, could you explain it in a little more plain english so that an absolute computer idiot -me- can understand?? Thanks again.

**schteve_d** · 01-13-2005, 04:34 AM

Thanks everyone for the replies and thanks Dragondawg for the recommendation of fish oil, I had actually never heard that before but after checking into it a little, I think I will start doing that for them both. If anyone is interested, this is one of the things I found after doing a search on the internet: http://www.worldwidehealthcenter.net/articles-281.html
Weight is not a problem for either of my dogs, they are both actually in great shape. They have had their food down 24/7 their whole lives. Buddy did tend to pig out at first, but it only lasted a few days until (I guess) he just realized it would always be there. That is one thing I am glad I did with them as I now work shift-work and it seems their schedule is not so regimented, they eat when they feel like it and I don't have to worry if I am messing with their "schedule".

**wolfsoul** · 01-13-2005, 09:36 AM

[img.]src='http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2004-10/845171/budtash5.jpg' width=306 height=229[./img]

See the periods inside the brackets, by img?

You just have to delete those periods, and then you will have an image.

**bckrazy** · 01-13-2005, 04:28 PM

are we allowed to do the "src" thing, or resize pictures in the board? wouldn't it be like this, wolfsoul?...

[img*]http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2004-10/845171/budtash5.jpg[*/img]

yeah, just copy/paste into the signature box in your user cp, and remove the *'s in the brackets. it'll look like this

.. (beautiful piccy by the way!)

**schteve_d** · 01-13-2005, 04:29 PM

So this should work??!! This is only a test. Thanks wolfsoul.

**schteve_d** · 01-13-2005, 04:30 PM

Doh!!!

**wolfsoul** · 01-13-2005, 04:33 PM

Oops, delete the =src'

LOL sorry about that

**kma4965491** · 01-15-2005, 09:06 PM

Steve,
I have three dogs and only one need an arthritis product. I tried a bunch of different products and Chrissy would not eat them. I went to my Vet and he recommended "Arthogen". He gave me some samples and she ate them like treats. They are a beef and cheese flavor that she likes. I have seen such a turn around in her. She can jump up on the bed and gets up and down the stairs now. (She turns 16 next month!!!) You can find the Arthogen at www.BestPetSupplements.com. They answered all my questions and sent the pills quickly. I hope this helps!

**Lexi_Lover** · 01-15-2005, 09:18 PM

**Lexi_Lover** · 01-15-2005, 09:23 PM

You need to take away the apostrophe(spl) before the http and make the letters in the brackets into capitals, you have the letters inside the brackets like this img they should be IMG, I think, as you can see it isn't available to show from what I just did! LOL!