Tips to help protect your pet's joints

From maintaining a lean body weight to favoring daily leash walks over high-impact play, David Dycus, DVM, MS, CCRP, DACVS-SA, emphasizes simple, practical steps pet owners can take immediately to reduce joint stress in their animals.

Transcript

David Dycus, DVM, MS, CCRP, DACVS-SA: Dr David Dycus here, orthopedic surgeon, and I want to give you some tips to help protect your pet’s joints.

Number 1, make sure we maintain a lean body weight. The last thing we want to do is overfeed and therefore have an overweight pet.

The second thing is we have to get some type of daily exercise. The best form of daily exercise in our pets is to take them out on a daily leash walk. We want to try to avoid high-impact activities, such as playing ball—a lot of the explosive running and stopping and twisting and turning—but we can find other activities to engage with our pets, such as swimming and hiking and sometimes even jogging.

Also, think about supplementation, in particular omega-3 fatty acids or fish oil supplements.

Also, if you have a young puppy, it’s not a bad idea to have your veterinarian evaluate them for particular developmental orthopedic diseases that could cause arthritis in the future.

And lastly, we want to take a proactive approach. If you suspect it’s a joint-related problem in your pet, don’t wait—have them evaluated by your veterinarian, because I think if we take a proactive approach and stay on top of things, we can manage joint health in our patients as best we can to keep them active, comfortable, and having the best possible quality of life ever.”