Ok, hang on a sec, perhaps I didn't explain myself well... or people are just making quite the leap.
I did not say she is in considerable pain or struggling to walk....
What I said was doing more than 40/45 min walks is too much, or when she (obviously of her own volition because she is an otherwise well and happy dog) gets the zoomies, playing with her 9 year old niece in the garden for a long period, running about like a lunatic.
What I didn't, and clearly should have explained, was what I mean by too much- She is sound and looks absolutely fine at the time, full of beans and very keen, later that day when she gets up she is stiff, and abducts her right leg slightly. Left to her own devices she would do far more than I think she should. I am certainly not dragging a reluctant, lame dog about whilst she is in considerable pain as a previous poster suggested!
She doesn't actually do a 40/45 min walk every day, and double checking back I didn't say that. I said doing more than 40/45 mins was too much for her. Most days she does a 30 min walk for the school run, and then a 10/15 min potter round the block for a sniff later on in the evening. Two days a week she does 40/45 min whilst we wait for one of the kids at sports club which lasts 45 min.
Is she obviously lame or limping to the casual observer? No.
Does this movement pattern last for more than a few hours? No.
Do I see many many dogs out and about with far FAR worse movement/actually obviously lame? Absolutely (Of course that doesn't make it right!)
However, I am wondering whether you have read the above post and are thinking she is some poor crippled, sad, old thing, obviously hobbling about on 3 legs! She is not! Most people, including vets and the vet nurses when meeting her for the first time, are very surprised by how old she is.
She saw the vet less than a month ago, who was very happy with her. These are slight changes that I, as a slightly neurotic owner, am noticing. Something that I have mused over with our physio previously, is that dog owners who also have horses are often extra critical of their dogs movement, because they are so used to watching their horses move/being alert for any unsoundness. It is completely unacceptable for a ridden animal to have any sort of discomfort/uneveness and therefore owners need to be hyper-vigilant, which leads them to be extra aware of how their dogs move too. I am wondering if in complaining about her movement, you are all thinking I have an obviously lame dog in constant pain, when in fact I have a dog who is in discomfort after too much exertion, but in a much subtler way - which I am obviously trying my best to address but it is not the same ball game.
She doesn't like me fiddling with her toes, stretching them out to clip them. She was never keen on having her nails done, and would avoid handing them over if possible. I think she is slightly less keen than before. However, as I know from my mum who has arthritis in her feet, having your toes pulled about (in her case by medics, not someone clipping her claws!) is uncomfortable vs not being pulled about. As she doesn't have lameness on the front legs, I do not think she is having pain in her general every day movement, as far as I can tell.
Running through the CBPI for her again at this time, I am not worried, I am not seeing any major changes in her scores from when we discussed it with the vet previously.
I have absolutely no concerns whatsoever about her quality of life!
When she was first prescribed the librela, the vet and I discussed NSAIDs. However, they incur the risk of nasty side effects, which the vet said we would be best to avoid if possible as she was so well in herself and would hopefully be on whatever we chose to manage the arthritis for a long time (and therefore she didn't want to risk her ending up with ulcers etc). The vet said that despite the cost librela was therefore the better option for us. Incidentally the vet was all for making sensible decisions on the balance between doing what she enjoys vs risking being stiff later. She said that if she ever does overdo it, to give her 1/2 a paracetamol which was a perfectly acceptable form of pain relief, especially as we were only using very occasionally.
The purpose of my post was to see if there was anything that directly targets arthritis inflammation in certain areas? Eg in horses we can either inject arthritic joints with steroids or with more modern drugs like arthramid (as opposed to drugs like Tilden which act all over). The librela she is currently on doesn't target specific areas but (to my understanding) deals with pain and inflammation in the body as a whole. In previous discussions with the vet such targeted injections have never been mentioned. I have seen some articles on google re the bigger joints... but nothing on toes as perhaps too small. Im guessing the answer to my question was probably no, but worth an ask... obviously we will speak to our vet as well.
Thank you.