Arthritis and Diet

There are several trains of thought within the veterinary profession; use grain-free diets, use homemade diets, or use prescription diets that focus on joint disease (and weight loss) and that may or may not include grain. Some grain-free brands of dry dog food include Meals-for-Mutts (stocked at the clinic), Taste of the Wild or Black Hawk – to name a few. Some Prescription foods for joint disease include Hills J/d, Hills Mobility or Hills Metabolic + Mobility. We stock both Hills and Meals-for-Mutts at the clinic.

Some pets are fed non-commercial, preservative free diets that are basically home-made, and either cooked or raw regimes. These are not wrong, just harder to quantify a balanced diet. There is some risk for bacterial contamination with raw food diets – care needs to be taken to prevent this. 

The long-term dietary plan sometimes relies on some level of trial and error, usually combining an appropriate commercial food with some home ingredients and monitoring the overall effect. 

Into this mix can be added fermented products (freeze dried fermented pre and probiotic powder (stocked at the clinic), kefir, kombucha), coconut oil, and anti-oxidant green powders such as Bioraculous. These additives boost gut health which in turn reduce overall inflammation in the body (including skin inflammation/allergies and joint inflammation).

Jointgard, Pernease Powder, Technyflex Canine or 4Cyte are different types of powder supplement that can be added daily to their food. They contain glucosamines, minerals and natural products such as Green-Lipped Mussel. They have a long-term effect of reducing the amount of arthritis development and usually maintain excellent cartilage health.