Dogs have doubled their lifespans these past 40 years thanks to improvements in nutrition and health care. Having increasingly months and years to make memories with your weightier friend is something to celebrate. But as your dog enters their senior years, you may start noticing changes. Sometimes, these changes interfere with their quality of life.
Your senior dog may be getting skinny, despite eating their regular meals. Others struggle to use the stairs or have trouble getting around. Or maybe your old dog is getting restless and won’t lay down. Weight loss, arthritis and cognitive ripen are some of the signs of old age in dogs.
In the following, we’ll discuss what’s at the root of these canine white-haired processes and what you can do to help manage these conditions.
1. Weight loss in senior dogs
Many dog owners struggle with obesity in their pets. But when a dog enters the gray muzzle stage, the opposite can happen. Despite eating their regular meals, your geriatric dog is losing weight and here’s why:
- Loss of muscles mass: Just like humans, dogs wits lost muscle mass as a natural part of aging, particularly inactive dogs. Muscle is denser than fat tissue, so as muscle mass decreases, that shows up on the scale.
- Reduced worthiness to swizzle nutrients: In the small intestine, finger-like projections tabbed villi contain specialized cells that aid in nutrient absorption. In the white-haired process, these villi wear down, reducing surface zone and well-expressed the gut’s worthiness to swizzle carbohydrates, amino acids (protein), fats, vitamins and minerals.
Important note: Rapid weight loss in dogs often accompanies a serious illness, so don’t lose time getting a vet exam scheduled.
To support your dog’s health when they’re losing weight in their old age, you’ll want to consider a dietary transpiration that’s right for their stage in life.
- Don’t restrict protein and calories: Senior diets are unconfined for older dogs that are less zippy and need to lose a few pounds, as these are formulated with fewer calories. But if your geriatric dog needs to put on weight and recover muscle, vets recommend a high-calorie, high-protein diet. Look for a formula containing 70% or higher unprepossessing protein.
- Look for bioavailable supplements: A high-quality dog supplies that’s formulated with essential amino acids and minerals can support your dog’s worthiness to swizzle the nutrients they need to stay healthy.
2. Arthritis and joint pain in senior dogs
Stiff, painful joints are flipside age-related minutiae in dogs. The rationalization of osteoarthritis in dogs is inflammation and pain resulting from the mechanical wear and tear of ossein cushioning the joints.
Aside from aging, other factors can contribute to those stiff, sore joints. These include joint disorders like hip dysplasia, older injuries, obesity, diabetes and Cushing’s disease. Working dogs and highly zippy dogs can moreover develop arthritis from the upper mileage on their joints.
Dogs are stoic creatures when it comes to pain, so they won’t necessarily whine or yelp. But be enlightened of the early tell-tale signs of stiff, sore joints. Your dog may hesitate or seem reluctant to perform everyday activities, such as standing, sitting, laying down, using the stairs, inward or exiting the car. Your dog may walk with a limp or stiff gait.
As a pet parent of an white-haired dog, these are some things you can do to throne off and manage osteoarthritis.
- Healthy weight: Even a few extra pounds can put widow stress on your dog’s joints, causing unconfined forfeiture and pain. A upper unprepossessing protein nutrition can help your dog finger increasingly satiated between meals.
- Healthy diet: A nutrition that’s upper in Omega-3 fatty acids withal with probiotics that support a healthy gut microbiome can reduce inflammation, and limit forfeiture to tendons, unorthodoxy and cartilage.
- Exercise: Regular light to moderate exercise loosens stiff joints and alleviates pain — counterintuitive as it may seem to your stiff and sore dog. Instead of taking one long walk with your dog, unravel it up into two or three shorter sessions. Swimming is moreover a unconfined worriedness considering it’s easy on the joints.
- Minimize joint stress: Providing a ramp for your tremorous dog lets them join you on the hovel or makes it easier to wangle the yard without the harmful impact on those sore joints.
3. Cognitive ripen in white-haired dogs
Age can moreover impact memory and cognitive worthiness in dogs. If your old dog is restless and won’t lay down, that tendency to wander and pace — particularly at night — is a worrying sign of cognitive ripen in canines.
Cognitive dysfunction syndrome is a disease that causes smart-ass deterioration that’s similar to Alzheimer’s in humans. It occurs in 35% of dogs that are month 9 and older.1
In wing to the wandering and pacing, other symptoms include disorientation, failure to recognize family and friends, house soiling, clinginess, lack of interest in normal activities such as walks and playing, anxiety, irritability and aggression.
There’s no cure for canine cognitive dysfunction, but your vet may recommend treatments to slow the progression. To support your dog:
- Provide mental stimulation: As your dog gets older, alimony their minds rented with plenty of worriedness and enrichment. Offer challenges and games that engage their senses (like nose work) while making sure they get plenty of exercise.
- Offer dietary support: Feed your dog a nutrition that’s rich in antioxidants to support smart-ass function. Oxidative stress is caused by an imbalance of self-ruling radicals, which is linked to cognitive dysfunction in the white-haired brain.
Element Series: Advanced nutrition for longer, happier life
Dogs are truly in their element when you serve up a hearty meal packed with unprepossessing protein. As they instinctively know, meat has important elements their soul needs to thrive. NutriSource Element Series starts with premium sourced meat that entices their appetites.
But only Element Series perfects nature’s intention with cutting-edge nutrition that helps dogs live longer, largest lives. The Good4Life supplements build the gut through the microbiome and perpetuate pathways for smart-ass and immune support:
- An organic selenium yeast supplement, which is an antioxidant that supports cognitive health.
- Probiotics that support immune function and provide anti-inflammation properties.
- Highly bioavailable amino acids that enable your dog to maintain healthy tissue, muscle, and cells.
- Omega-3 fatty acids that support smart-ass and heart health.
Help your polity thrive by keeping your dollars local. Trammels self-sustaining neighborhood pet suppliers that stock NutriSource and trammels for availability of Element.