[Dailydrool] Senior basset backs

[Pamela McQuade]

 From your description, this sounds to me more like arthritis than a bad 
back. Our Holly does the same thing, where she lies down and her legs 
splay out. I often give her a hand to help her get her legs back under 
her, and she does fine until she lies down again.

Typically, dogs with bad backs cannot turn their paws up again if you 
turn them over, so I think your vet is probably right here.

I would not count on the glucosamine and chondroitin in food to take 
care of things. As I understand it, that is a small amount that will not 
work all that effectively. According to the chart I got from the surgeon 
who recommended it for my Abner's back problem, a basset should get 500 
mg of glucosamine and 400 mg of chondroitin. For the first six weeks (as 
a loading dose), a 25-50 lb. dog should get two daily. The maintenance 
dose, after those six weeks is one daily. For a 50-100 pound dog, the 
loading dose is three daily, followed by two daily for maintenance.

My vet warned me that the amount of the active ingredients in G&C 
supplements varies. Since this is not a pharmaceutical drug, there is no 
set amount of the active ingredient that must be in the pills. Some 
companies include more than others. We started out using a name brand, 
as the surgeon suggested, but after a while, it did not seem to work as 
well. So I started buying another kind through my vet (it is called 
Arthrogen). It has worked much better. But as time goes on, it seems 
that Holly is less and less comfortable. Arthritis is a terrible thing.
Pam, food slave to the Dashing Bassets