Recognizing Joint Pain
Dogs seldom show you how much pain they're in. From years of living in the wild they've learned how to hide their discomfort from predators who might be ready to pounce on any sign of weakness. Dogs haven't lost this evolutionary adaptation, and they still suffer silently. Often, a dog won't complain unless he is in extreme distress.
For the senior canine set, behaviors normally associated with pain can be misinterpreted as simply growing old, but if you can recognize when your dog is in pain you can obtain treatment and quickly alleviate his aches. In fact, early care and prevention of inflammation helps control the progression of arthritis and gives your dog that much more time to have an active lifestyle.
Arthritis is a mildly inflammatory condition that causes the cartilage between the joints to degenerate. Cartilage acts as a cushion between the bones that form a joint. When there's cartilage loss, bone rubs on bone — a very painful condition. As the condition worsens, movement becomes increasingly more painful and crippling.
Is it okay to take a puppy jogging?
No. He'll push to keep up and won't stop when he's tired. Wait until he's at least twelve to eighteen months old when the growth plates in his bones are closed. If you run with him earlier than that, you risk damaging his young joints. It's okay to let a puppy run around on his own because he knows when to quit.
Older dogs are prone to arthritis. It affects one in every five adult dogs and more than 75 percent of all dogs by the time they are ten years of age. Although dogs develop arthritis mostly in one or both hips, it can also affect the back, neck, knees, elbows, carpus (equivalent to the human wrist), shoulders, or ankles.
Signs of Arthritis
If you notice your dog doing any of the following for more than two weeks, he needs to visit the veterinarian for an arthritis evaluation:
Favoring a limb or limping
Rising slowly to a sitting or a standing position
Sleeping more
Hesitant to jump, run, climb stairs, or leap into the car
Weight gain
Less interest in being active or wanting to play
Depressed attitude or behavior
Less alert
Difficulty defecating and/or urinating
In the early stages of arthritis, a dog may move away or flinch when touched if he feels any discomfort. Swollen joints are painful in dogs, just as they are in humans.
Types of Arthritis
Osteoarthritis is the result of damage to the joints. A dog with osteoarthritis will show signs of lameness, which can be brought on by damp or cool weather or exercise. Traumatic injury to bone, cartilage, or ligaments can also trigger osteoarthritis.
To diagnose the cause of pain, the veterinarian will take the dog's health history, perform an examination, and take an X-ray. With rheumatoid arthritis, a special blood test can be done to locate unique antibodies known as the rheumatoid factor. A thorough diagnosis is necessary before treatment begins because bone cancer and other diseases can have similar symptoms.
There are two broad classes of osteoarthritis. Repetitive overuse or misuse of joints causes primary osteoarthritis. Secondary arthritis is more common and is the result of some sort of initiating cause, such as poor conformation, physical injury or trauma, or joint dysplasia. Osteoarthritis is classified as noninflammatory even though there is some mild inflammation that results from the symptoms and progression of disease. Also known as degenerative joint disease, osteoarthritis may be inherited and is usually part of the normal aging process.
In rare cases, vaccinations can cause immune-based polyarthritis. Symptoms can follow the first injection or a booster vaccination and may spontaneously clear up within a few days. Therefore, it's important for the veterinarian to take a complete vaccination history, including noting previous vaccine reactions, before giving a vaccine.
Inflammatory arthritis includes rheumatoid arthritis and infectious arthritis. Rheumatoid arthritis is an immune-mediated inflammatory condition of the joints. It occurs mainly in small and toy breeds. Dogs are usually between the ages of two and six years when they are diagnosed, although cases in dogs as young as eight months have been reported. Rheumatoid arthritis is caused by an overreaction of the immune system. The body reacts to its own protein sources as if they were foreign protein particles and manufactures antibodies to shut them down. This damages the joint, and the cartilage and the bone in the joint wear away. While the symptoms may be identical to those in other forms of arthritis, the dog may or may not be lame and several joints are usually affected by rheumatoid arthritis. Other groups of inflammatory diseases that cause arthritis include cancer, gastrointestinal disease, infections in the body, and other immune complex diseases. In cases of infectious arthritis, an infectious agent causes joint inflammation.
Spondylosis is a degenerative, noninflammatory condition of the vertebrae. It is the accumulation of new bone (calcium deposits) around one or more joints of the spinal column. This does not usually cause pain, although some dogs do have problems.
Causes of Arthritis
Several conditions contribute to arthritis. The biggest culprit is obesity, which causes inflammation throughout the body. Too much weight also allows pressure on the joints to build up. Other factors include:
High levels of stress
Poor nutrition with inadequate protein, vitamins, or minerals
Faulty genetic bone structure
Immune system diseases or imbalance
Lack of exercise
Too much vigorous exercise before bones are done growing
Bacterial invasion of joints
Prior injuries to joints, ligaments, or bones
Hypersensitivity reactions to antibiotics or vaccinations and boosters
Hip Dysplasia
A common cause of arthritis is hip dysplasia. This genetic condition most often occurs in giant and large breeds of dogs, such as Labrador and Golden Retrievers, Saint Bernards, Great Pyrenees, and German Shepherds, although many medium-and small-sized breeds may also develop the problem.
Medium-and large-breed puppies should not spend the majority of their time indoors on a smooth floor. This causes legs and hips to slide around too much and the muscles to atrophy. Canine feet need traction on a rough surface outdoors. Dogs need to move around freely to build up leg and hip muscle.
Hip dysplasia is a malformation of the hip socket where the femur does not fit tightly into the pelvic socket. The looseness produces pain, and a dog will limp or bunny hop when running.
The problem is usually apparent by the time a dog is eighteen months of age, although a veterinarian can palpate the hip before the puppy is four months of age to determine if there is loose movement in the hip joint. When a dog is two years old, the hip is fully formed and a series of X-rays can diagnose hip dysplasia.
