How old was your dog when they stopped being able to walk very far?

[OnlyOnAFriday]

So my small dog is 12yo. Through her life we’ve walked 2-3 miles most weekday and longer country walks at weekends. The weekend walks have definitely got shorter the last year and are probably only 2 miles now. Some weekdays I’m at work and she has a shorter walk with the dog walker.

She’s been on meloxidyl for a year now as well as Yumove. Vet said it’s old age and to be expected. Her back legs are definitely stiff and she needs a step to get on the sofa.

she’s now struggling with the weekday walks. We turned back today as she was limping

i’m not sure if I should be talking to the vet about better pain relief or just accepting she needs a shorter gentle potter of a walk.

she goes up and down the stairs ok and has a big garden which she happily trots around in and looks quite sprightly round the garden.

I don’t want to push her. But also aware it could be use it or lose it? She’s due her vaccines soon so I will talk to her vet as well.

Honestly, I think unless you compare breed to breed (and also health tested/non-health tested) it's really hard to make an accurate comparison.

I have Goldies, so much larger. My 13 year old still does 5/6 miles minimum every day at a good pace (I walk 4mph). All my Goldies have been like this. But lots of other Goldies by 13 are either barely able to walk from what I've seen, or they're dead (life expectancy is 10-12).

There's no harm in slowing down walks. But, I think people have a tendency to forget that, actually, older dogs are just as 'fragile' as puppies when it comes to strain on the joints - less is always better. If your girl is already on pain relief you should definitely be looking at things like physio (or hydrotherapy if you can afford it), stopping her going up the stairs and jumping off sofas etc - pain relief is all well and good, but if your dog is still putting unnecessary strain on her joints by jumping off sofas, going up stairs etc, then you're paying for pain relief whilst continuing to contribute to her pain.

I'm sorry though. It's crap watching them get older.

Thank you. Good points. She has had McTimmoney in the past. There is no hydrotherapy close enough for me to be able to get her there when I work full time.

It's hard to answer this question as different breeds have such different life expectancies. A lot of smaller dogs can have longer life expectancies than larger dogs. But there are some smaller breeds that have a lot of health problems so it's very hard to know.

I'm wondering if you are walking your dog slightly too little or too infrequently. I don't know from your post how much you are breaking up the walks so whether they are one bigger walk and then a lot of lying down or whether more little and often. What I found with my last dog who had bad arthritis is that he improved a lot with more low-level but more frequent exercise. What was worst was doing a lot but with long stretches of nothing or lying down. The more constant trotting around with my other dog was very good for him and he seemed to improve a lot for his last couple of years. I also made sure to cut out the jarring elements like fetch games, but he could have a ball and carry it or just mess around with my other dog. The thing that made the most difference was when we got our younger dog as the older dog loved to follow him around and was very motivated but also enjoyed the lower level stuff (he had always been a very game-orientated dog).

I'm not suggesting you get another dog or anything as two dogs of different needs and life stages can be hard in different ways. But it might be worth thinking about whether going with someone else with a dog or increasing your dog's motivation might be helpful? In my experience it's the too much exercise in one bout plus a lot of lying down and not doing anything that makes everything stiffen and hurt. Whereas the low-level more constant movement was more helpful. I understand this might be hard to achieve particularly on days not working at home though.

I have an older dog who is a larger breed and he is presently very fit and not as arthritic as my last dog was at this age touch wood. Just luck of the draw I suppose. But recently he was limping and the vet was on about reducing walks totally and even crating him until he recovered, which I thought was very extreme. They also went on about hydrotherapy which is all very well but that's massively inconvenient and expensive and my dog hates water! But what I did concentrate on was doing leadwalking in areas he likes to go and also putting him onlead to walk upstairs in a careful controlled way where he uses each leg. I read somewhere that careful lead walking like this this can make them use each leg more carefully and individually and helps strengthen them. He got a lot better. The other thing I did was increase his protein slightly. This is probably just an issue for us as he is on a special low protein diet due to an issue when younger and has been for years (we have never have proper idea of whether this is completely necessary or not, so it's quite an individual situation). But the vet had commented that his back legs were low muscled so I thought I'd try. I don't know what made the difference but his limp got better (probably a sport injury) but the thing I notice is his movement in general is looking a lot better now. He had been slightly scuffing his back feet and I think this has improved quite a bit and he's picking them up a lot more. So I'm going to continue to do an element of careful lead walking and stair walking i think along with his normal offlead stuff. I also did do a bit of massaging of his hind legs - nothing extreme - but I think that might have been helpful.

None of that is scientific and obviously with older dogs they worry a lot about renal issues so the protein thing might not be a good idea or relevant for others. In our case he was already on a superlow protein diet so I felt it might be something I needed to look at and I simply moved from a very low protein diet to a slightly different version of the same thing that was still lowish protein diet so nothing extreme and we are probably a specialised case anyway!

But the careful stair walking and careful leadwalking and maybe gentle massage might be worth looking into and adding in.

You say your dog is more perky in the garden? Could be they are more confident in the garden or more happy and motivated? Do they enjoy their ordinary walks? Could they be a bit more anxious now older? (Older dogs can get a bit anxious if losing sight/hearing etc?) Could be that they have a sore leg and being offlead is less sore as they are offloading onto the other three whereas leadwalking forces it to be used more and therefore is more painful? If the latter maybe worth exploring further with vet to see if an actual injury.

I would say that in my experience motivation is also a thing with older dogs. My arthritic dog improved so much when his motivation increased and he did more but at a steady level. It was my other dog that provided more motivation but perhaps your dog would find other motivations - food? favourite place?

Just to add I'm not meaning to imply that you are not walking your dog enough as you sound like a great owner! More than with my own experience I found we were walking my older dog less as he was getting sore and you don't know what to do. But actually him doing more in terms of frequency but not so extremely (if you see what I mean) was really helpful.

My second dog that I describe I think it was an injury so maybe less relevant but I added it in as he his backlegs were not moving so well in general before and he was not lifting them as high before we did the stuff above so I have wondered if trying to make efforts to keep those backlegs strong to recover the injury helped in a more general way?

15 years old, mongrel. Had her pts at 16

Our 10 year old Goldie hs really slowed down recently but he has arthritus and is on painkillers daily and monthly jabs.
He had a serious illness aged 3 and never really recovered his energy unfortunately and just potters now

Difficult to say without knowing breed.
My two GSDs have slowed a little at 6 and 7, but life expectancy is generally around 10ish, so not unusual.
On the face of it, age sounds most likely but more frequent shorter walks might be better if achievable.

I walk dogs of all breeds and honestly there is no set age. I currently have a 12yo spaniel on my books who tears round like a puppy for hours whereas the 7yo collie struggles after 45 minutes.

If she’s struggling then I would definitely look at what you can do reduce impact on her joints - no stairs, for example, and using a ramp to help her get into the car or onto furniture so she doesn’t have to jump. Non-slip mats in the house can also make a huge difference.

You could also ask the dog walker to shorten her walk or swap it over to a welfare break instead.

My dog (miniature Australian labradoodle - so working cocker size) started to slow down slightly at 13, but really slowed at 14, and his last three months I had to drive to the park rather than walk there. As soon as he turned 15 his health deteriorated very rapidly and he went from walking around the block to me carrying him to the vets three weeks later to be pts. My other labradoodle (not Australian and a bit smaller) is just shy of 14 and she doesn’t like going up the stairs and again I drive her to the park now. Half a mile is her limit. I’d say it was from when she turned 13 too but seems to have lost mobility faster. She’s had a few pain injections and is on supplements but I don’t think they’ve made any difference.
I don’t think you should force dogs to walk more than they are comfortable with.

@carrotsfortea thanks for that. I’ll take it on board. We do tend to have one walk a day and the rest of the day she’s snoozing on the sofa. I think moving to two shorter walks might be better.

The dog walker already does a slow paced 20 min walk so I think she’s ok there.

when I walk her it’s always off lead and during the week it’s with other dogs. She’s always keen to go. I do think though maybe the speed is too fast so we maybe need to walk on our own and at her pace moving forward

I will ask the vet about the monthly injections too.

I do try and stop her jumping down off the bed. With the sofa she has the step. Not sure what to do about the stairs as I can’t carry her up or down them and she loves being upstairs.

We found yumove didn’t do much. I use Riaflex which helps. And we’ve done Bowen therapy too.

She’s a bichon frise

Not heard of Riaflex but just ordered a sample, thanks.

My GSD is only starting to slow down now aged 10. The vet thinks she's got early signs of arthritis. What has really helped over the past few years is giving her glucosamine every night...it's worth trying for yours too.

My collie cross struggles now he is 14 so gets driven to the park.

My lurcher is around 12.5. He really struggled last winter with lameness. I started Yu Move. Sardines in his dinner and CBD oil on his food once a day. It’s made a huge difference to him. He doesn’t limp now at all. His back legs do give way a bit sometimes. He has one walk a day of around 30-40 minutes. Very slow with loads of sniffing. Then sleeps the rest of the day. I’d recommend the CBD oil if you’ve not tried it. I was going to get him librella injections and have one in the fridge but he never needed it in the end as he improved so much. He’s old and quite slow but doesn’t seem to be in pain anymore. 🥰

I think it depends on a lot of factors. Our 12 year old cockerpoo has always had long off lead walks and she will still do a 2-3 hour walk, albeit walking next to us rather than running around. Our 16 year old Westie died a few years ago and he slowed gradually from tbe age of 10 from what I remember. At 12, he wouldn’t be doing anywhere near what our current 12 year old dog does now.

If your dog is limping I would speak to a vet. Old age does not automatically mean that you dog should be in pain. If she is alread on meloxidyl for pain then that needs to be revisited to make her more comfy.

Old age does bring challenges and maybe adaptions are needed but I disagree with your vet that it is to be expected and just ignored.

Have you tried a glucosamine and chodirine supplement for your dog ? We use simply supplements for our labrador for her elbow displaysia and it has worked wonders

As said above depends on many factors.
Two of our mid sized mongrels would.merrily walk for 3 to 5 miles aged 16 and 17. The Welsh collie only until 13.
My mums lab was about 10.

Do you have physical reasons to not be able to carry her upstairs? Or is she reluctant to be picked up?
If the latter, it would be possible to condition her to be comfortable with it to negate that problem

Supplement wise, I find ProDogRaw Flex to be much more effective than either riaflex or yumove. Definitely shorter more frequent walks help at this stage - as do some simple strength exercises if done right. There are often workshops available to learn this, or some online courses (Dogs4motion being one) but for gold standard help, book a canine physical therapist appointment as a one off.
My local hydro pool is open late evening and both weekend days, so perhaps you could fit it in somewhere?

Mine Are 12 and have slowed down. Both have arthritis and are on librella which helps. Also Youmove. But the supplement that seems to have made most difference is turmeric! Shorter walks at a slower pace as well.