What do you do with a hinky hip?

People always ask me how old River is. She's somewhere between 9 and 10. She was an owner surrender in April of 2009, and her age was listed as 4.

She's still excitable and feisty when we go out, and she doesn't have her grey face yet-- just a slight peppering of white hairs on her muzzle that you can see if you look very closely. She's still silly and pretty and giving us all hell. It is her life's work.

But we've noticed some slowing down. Some excess shedding. Some pain. She goes up the stairs quickly, but with a hop, and comes down a little cock-eyed. So we started the Adequan a few months ago, and I think it's helping her. 

We noticed yesterday that she cried much of the way down the stairs, though. I noticed a lot of resistance when I tried to manipulate one of her rear legs. So off to the vet we went. 

We did the first set of xrays that she's had in a couple of years. And this time, there was some arthritis visible in her hips and knees. It clearly hurt her to flex the hip for xray, so we didn't opt to take a second film that would show a little more. 

I had already been considering trying out Herbsmith's Soothe Joint as extra support to add to the glucosamine. It's a Traditional Chinese Medicine herbal blend. I jokingly mentioned to the vet that I know I'm a fruitloop, but I'm thinking of trying it out. She did not laugh. 

In fact, she told me about some success she has been having with her own ailments using a Chinese herb in tea form. And then she asked me how I felt about NSAIDs instead of just prescribing them and moving on. It made me really appreciate the relationship we've developed with our vets-- particularly this vet who seemed the most skeptical of our move to raw to help Robin's crystals. 

So River currently takes Glycoflex III, but I think Dasuquin works a bit better, and so when we run out of the Glycoflex, we'll switch back. She gets salmon oil, so we'll boost that and carry on. I have the Rimadyl on hand for rough days, as needed, but we'll likely look for a gentler solution. And she's really not going to like this one... I really think I need to reduce her food just a bit again. 

But she WILL like this one: we'll need to take more walks to work off this last 5lbs that she needs to lose. 

In the meantime, Andre continues to do well with beef, turkey and pork at home. He and Luna switched to an all-in-one probiotic/enzyme powder.

And Luna's nails are growing back yeast-free. We have put her on Animal Essentials Green Alternative, and so far so good. Her skin and coat look better, too. I think this is taking the place of her kelp nicely.

And a few interesting things going on with Robin, but I'll address those in a separate post. :)