Arthritis is extremely common in dogs from middle age onwards and is consistently under-treated, for one reason: it arrives slowly, the dog never complains, and the owner adjusts without noticing. The walk gets shorter, the stairs get avoided, the dog stops greeting at the door, and all of it gets filed under getting old.
It is a painful, progressive condition and a great deal of it is manageable.
What you are actually looking for
Limping is a late sign. What appears first is small and mechanical:
- Slow or stiff to get up, particularly in the morning or after a long sleep
- Stopping shaking itself after standing, which many dogs do when the movement hurts
- Reluctance to jump into the car, onto the sofa or up stairs
- Sitting crooked, lying down heavily, changing position often at night
- Lagging behind on walks, or stopping to stand rather than to sniff
- Licking repeatedly over one joint
- Becoming grumpy about being touched, groomed or approached suddenly
- Slipping on smooth floors, which is often the first thing a household notices
Film thirty seconds of your dog walking away from you every few weeks. Gait changes are obvious side by side and invisible from memory.
Weight, first and always
Every extra kilo is load on damaged joints for every step the dog takes. Weight reduction in an overweight arthritic dog produces a visible improvement more reliably than anything else available, and it is free.
Judge by hand monthly: ribs easily felt with light pressure, a waist visible from above, a tuck from the side. Weigh the food rather than using a cup, count treats inside the daily total, and reduce by ten per cent at a time. Aim for slow loss over months rather than a crash diet, and ask your vet to set a target weight so you are not guessing.
Exercise: change the shape, not the amount
Rest is not the treatment. Muscle supports the joint, and a dog that stops moving loses the muscle and gets worse. What changes is how the movement is delivered.
- Several short outings rather than one long one. Three of twenty minutes beats one of an hour
- Grass, forest track and soft ground rather than tarmac and concrete
- Level routes rather than the steep valley descent, however much the dog used to love it
- A slow warm-up: the first five minutes at a walk before anything faster
- No repetitive ball throwing, which combines high-speed turns with sudden stops
- Consistency: the weekend hike after five sedentary days is what produces the Monday limp
Hydrotherapy and veterinary physiotherapy are worth asking about. Controlled swimming or an underwater treadmill builds muscle without loading the joint, and a physiotherapist will give you home exercises that take five minutes a day.
The flat, adapted
Most of the difficulty an arthritic dog has indoors is surface and height. Runners or rugs along the route between bed, water and door stop the slipping that makes a dog afraid to move. A thicker orthopaedic bed away from draughts, a raised bowl for a stiff neck, a ramp instead of the car boot, and the lift instead of the stairs all remove daily load.
Keep nails short, because long nails change the angle of the foot, and trim the fur between the pads, which grows over the grip. Both are small, and on a tiled Luxembourg hallway they matter.
Medication and what to ask
Do not give human painkillers. Several common ones are toxic to dogs, and paracetamol and ibuprofen in particular cause serious harm.
Ask your vet for a proper pain trial: a fortnight of correctly dosed medication, then an honest assessment of whether the dog is brighter, moving more and sleeping better. Owners are frequently astonished, which tells you how much discomfort had become normal.
Ask also about the longer plan: what monitoring the medication requires, what else exists beyond the first-line drug, whether joint supplements or a prescription diet are worth adding in your dog's case, and what the signs of a bad day look like so you can report them usefully.
The seasons, which change what the dog can do
Cold and damp stiffen arthritic joints, and in this country that covers a good part of the year. In winter, warm the dog up before anything faster than a walk, keep outings shorter and more frequent, dry the dog properly on return, and consider a coat for a thin-coated or elderly animal standing about in the rain.
Summer brings the opposite problem: an arthritic dog is frequently also an overweight one, and both reduce heat tolerance. Walk early and late, choose shaded valley routes rather than open pavement, and accept that on the hottest days an indoor session of scent work is the better exercise.
Ice is the specific hazard. A slip on frozen pavement can undo months of careful management in a second, so in freezing conditions stay on gritted or grassy surfaces, shorten the route, and keep the dog on a lead where it might otherwise run.
Prevention, for the dogs that are still young
Keep puppies lean and do not over-exercise them while the growth plates are open: no long runs beside a bicycle, no repetitive jumping, no stairs many times a day, particularly in large and giant breeds. Keep adults lean. Build fitness consistently rather than in weekend bursts. None of that guarantees anything, and all of it changes the odds.
Telling the person who walks your dog
An arthritic dog needs a different walk, and it has to be written down rather than assumed: shorter and more frequent, level routes, soft ground, no ball, no stairs, a slow start, and paws dried properly in winter because cold and damp make stiffness worse.
The report matters more for these dogs than for any other. A note that your dog was slower on the same hill three Wednesdays running, or that it stopped twice on a route it used to do easily, is exactly the information a vet needs, with dates attached.
At PAWLY older dogs are usually booked as two shorter visits rather than one long walk, and the report records how the dog moved rather than only where it went.
General information for dog owners in Luxembourg, not veterinary or legal advice. For your own dog, ask your vet, a qualified behaviourist or your commune. How this journal is written and checked.
Away from your dog all day?
PAWLY provides individual dog walks, home visits and overnight care in your own home, across Luxembourg City. Same walker every time, written report after every visit.
Keep reading
All Health articles
Grooming and coat care through the Luxembourg year
Mats are not cosmetic. They pull on skin, trap damp and hide what is underneath.
Worming: a schedule, not a reaction
Many flea products do not treat worms at all. Check what yours actually covers.
Dog first aid: the six emergencies and what to do first
Nobody researches an out-of-hours vet while carrying a collapsed dog down three flights of stairs.
