Caring for the older dog

Ageing is not a disease but is a natural normal life process. It is however, accompanied by wear and tear on the body. Today with the advances in Veterinary medicine, improvements in nutrition, vaccination and our own understanding of excellence in dog ownership and medical care, our dogs are living longer.

What age is my dog considered old?

Life expectancy in dogs range from breed to breed and surprisingly; we should start to manage the ageing process in our dogs earlier than we think. As described above, wear and tear and the bodies deceasing ability to repair itself, accompany ageing. However it is not all bad news, because we now understand when the ageing process starts to affect our dog’s health, we can start to minimize the progressive deterioration and maintain or improve our dog’s quality of life.

As a general rule an elderly preventative programme could begin at the following stages:

Small dogs (weighing less than 20lb) 7 years 
Medium Dogs (weighing 21 to 50lb) 6 years 
Large dogs (weighing 51 to 90 lb) 5 years 
Giant dog (weighing more than 90lbs) 7 years 

What can I do to help my ageing dog?

Fortunately, we can assist our dog through his golden years in many ways, and it is much easier to care for the older dog than the older human.

Here are a few tips you may wish to follow for your older dog:

1. Respect by all members of the family including other pets and children, do not allow them to bother your older dog, patience may be wearing thin and your dog could become less tolerant as it gets older.

2. If your dogs sight and hearing is deteriorating, do stick to his normal routine, do not move furniture around and keep its walks to a regular time and distance each day.

3. Regular exercise is important to maintain bone strength and muscle tone, however your dog may have a locomotive problem such as arthritis, degenerative joint disease or just have difficulty standing up, if this is the case you may have to adjust its exercise routine.

4. Be understanding of them if they do fail to respond to you, hear you, or have little accidents.

5. Keep their bedding comfortable or warm, if they are used to being kennelled outside on hard concrete surfaces, consider bringing them indoors on softer bedding, they are more prone to developing sores, or hard callous on their joints such as elbows or hocks, these can become extremely painful or ulcerated.

6. Keep them clean and groomed more regularly, as they may have difficulties in grooming themselves. It is also an ideal time to notice any changes or abnormalities.

7. Keep their nails; trimmed short, you may have to have them clipped more regularly.

Measures we can take ourselves to support our dogs in their older years are:

1. Take him or her for a regular check up at the Veterinary Practice, at least twice a year.

2. Keep their vaccinations up to date, their immune response starts to decline in later years, so up keep of vaccinations are just as important as early on in their lives.

3. Regular teeth cleaning, scaling and polishing, to help prevent against bad breath and dental disease

Nutrition for the older dog

Nutrition plays a vital part of the process of preventative health and commercially produced foods contain more than the adequate levels of all of the essential nutrients needed by normal dogs. In fact dogs, fed commercial foods are consuming anywhere between three to five times their daily protein requirement, three times the daily calcium requirement and phosphorus requirement and ten times the daily requirement of salt. The older dog, on the other hand would benefit from a diet with reduced levels of protein, calcium, phosphorus and sodium. This kind of diet may be helpful in the onset of clinical diseases common in older pets. Also keep a close eye on your dogs weight, as dogs grow older they are more prone to weight gain due to a reduction in exercise and their ability to metabolise energy is reduced.

There is more information on food for mature dogs in the dog supplies section.

Disclaimer

This pet health article is for reference only.

If your pet is showing any symptoms or distress, and you suspect your pet is ill CONTACT YOUR VET IMMEDIATELY.