*Barks
Do you know dog is a hyper active animal? A healthy and happy dog could walk for 1.6 km each day. Wow that is a very far distance for a pet even we doubt the owner would walk such kilometers in a day. However, there is a risk to it. Dog is an animal that has greater chance to get a physical injuries or emotional damage. For a dog, joint damage is mostly occurred especially when your dog love to run and jump anywhere non stop everyday. A dog who gotten a joint damage could possible create another problem such as emotional damage like trauma. Another consequences of joint damage is your dog suddenly has a weird awkward movement. Overall your precious friend would have nothing but pain and sorrow with this joint damage consuming your dog’s body and will literally eat her soul. Which is why we are going to tell you on How to Prevent Joint Damage in Dogs.
- Symptoms
As the owner and as her friend, you surely know if somethings wrong happened to your dog. Your dog who usually barks happily and always ask you to play with her, suddenly turns into someone who even does not want to talk to you, does not move oftenly, and you could feel a sadness inside her by just looking into her eyes. This probably because your dog has a joint damage around his body, if you find any of this symptoms then surely your dog has a joint damage.
- Awkward Movement
Just like us, a dog who has a joint problem would have an awkward movement. Her walk just simply not normal and she just like avoiding to walk normaly because if she does there would be pain around her joint. This symptoms is easier to identify, however this does not always was caused by joint damage. Awkward movement could be caused by accident or broken bones. So you better to check another symptoms out.
- Stiffness
As you found out that your dog has walked awkwardly, then you might want to check out around her legs whether her legs has a stiff or not. If your dog’s leg has a stiff movement then it could be your dog has joint damage especially when you identify it around her joint. However be careful though, you need to be careful when doing this to avoid your gotten hurt because of you checking out her legs.
- Difficult to Stand
After you found out your dog has a weird awkward movement and stiffness around her legs then try to watch her sit and stand back again. If she gotten into struggle just for standing then she might got a joint problem.
- Limping
This is what we meant as “awkward movement”. Limping is an obvious sign that your dog has an injuries however you might want to check another symptoms to make sure does she got a joint damage or a broken bones?.
- Swelling in the Joints
This is the dead sentence of your dog that clearly show you the obvious sign of your dog has a joint damage. A swelling around the joint emphasize that your dog has a joint damage. If this occurs, then you must be prepared as your dog not only would got an awkward movement but also emotional damage.
- She Rejects Your Pat
When you try to pat your dog and she refuses it Well you must be aware your dog might be has a joint damage. If joint damage occured to your dog, not only it could damage her movement but also could damage her emotions. What a poor soul.
- Refuse to Jump or Climb Stairs
If you play with your dog around the house or the park then you found your dog has refused to climb the stairs or even jump it then it could be a sign that your dog has a joint damage. Especially when another symptoms has occured.
- Bad Temper
After the excruciating pain that was caused by joint damage. It could damage your dog’s emotion especially her temper. A fun happy friendly dog would turn into a fearsome aggresive dog. This is so painful to watch our friend suffers like this.
What Should I Do if My Dog has a Joint Damage?
We recommend you to visit the vet immediately, and before that please compress the damage using ice or cold blanket to help with the pain. Don’t delay your dog treatment because it could make it way even worse and your dog might have to take a surgery.
As Always, Prevention is Better than Treatment
We have talked about liver damage before, along with this article both of them has a same conclusion even though both of them has different problems, which is prevention is better than treatment. It is indeed more painful for you to see your dog in a vet as you see her sad face tells it all especially when the vet sentenced her to surgery treatment. What a poor thing. Which is why prevention is always better than treatment so your dog could be happy and healthy always. In order to prevent a joint damage there are simple easy steps that we could do, which are :
1. Exercise
Well practice makes perfect and exercise makes everything become usual. With proper exercise your dog would become suited with any physical activities. Just like human do, a person who rarely do exercise then suddenly does a heavy physical activities would have a greater chance than a person who oftenly do exercise, which is why if your dog love to run here and jump there it is better to do it regularly. Also make sure your dog does not do any extreme movement such as backflip before she does small exercise frequently first. You could simply train your dog by take her for a walk or play catch with her. Do this for around one time in a day.
2. Food Change
Well after all, not only you could prevent joint damage by exercising your dog, but you could also prevent it by giving them a proper foods or drinks along with vitamins. Doing both of them however, decrease any chance of your dog getting a joint damage. You could simply give your dog a food or drink which contains calcium such as sardine fish and milk or just simply ask your vet for a vitamins.
Note This
Even though you have done anything you could do to prevent joint damage, your dog still has a chance to be suffered to it. This oftenly caused by genetical factors which is quite difficult to avoid. We recommend that you give more proper vitamins for your dog along with exercise and food change.
Well that is all on how we prevent joint damage in your dog. If your dog already got it then quickly bring her to a vet. If she doesn’t then prevent it, as always prevention is better than treatment right?. Remember a happy dog is a healthy dog which is a happy friend!.
*Barks away