Senior check ups are extremely important
Bella is 11 and Fitz will be 10 in June. They are big dogs, and they do age faster than the littles. It happens so fast, and we have to prepare for what is to come. Have you changed your dogs food to senior food? have you done a senior screening? Do they have arthritis? Do I give all of the supplements they need? Some things to think about as our loved ones age. Please make an appointment with your vet and come up with a solid plan to make your pups senior years comfortable ones. Both of my dogs have arthritis, so we give them MSM/Glucosamine as well as fish oil and several others. We have recently started pain medication as well.
When I took my boy Fitz in, he weighed in at 109lbs. He is a big boy! I have noticed he does not go upstairs at night anymore, and he is getting up less and less to greet us at the door when we come home. These are signs that something is off with him. I had a full senior blood and urine panel done on him. The results came back, and most of the report was good. The liver enzymes were elevated quite a bit, so we decided to schedule an ultrasound and have his body X-rayed for arthritis while he was sedated. We are so very happy we decided to do this. It turns out he has a a gallbladder mucocele. What that is, is the distention of the gallbladder by an inappropriate accumulation of mucus. Decreased bile flow, decreased gallbladder motility, and altered absorption of water from the gallbladder lumen are predisposing factors to biliary sludge. It is the reason his liver levels were so high. We will now need to do an ultra sound every 3 months to make sure it is not enlarging too much. He may have to have his Gallbladder removed.
We also found severe arthritis in three different parts of his back. We have come up with a good treatment plan to keep him comfortable. I will also be looking into acupuncture. My point is, we would never have known all of this was going on if we did not take him in. This is a part of being a responsible pet parent. Please read below on some more information on how we can care for our senior dogs and what to look for.
After our vet appointment, we stopped to get our boy Fitz some ice cream.
