Please can someone advise me on a supplement / treat to give for stiff joints?

Please can someone advise me on a supplement / treat to give for stiff joints ?

Bruce my 5 yr old rottie is getting stiff in his back legs after walking, I normally give my dogs cod liver oil, as a daily supplement, but poor Bruce cannot have that, I have tried introducing it slowly into his diet, but it upsets his tummy, he has a very delicate tummy, he has I.R.S. due to his history,
Bruce was in the rescue because he had been nearly starved to death, and he weighed only about half what he should have. and because of this he ended up having to have several ops because his tummy became twisted and ended up on medication, he was still struggling to gain weigh when he came to us a year later and he was on two of them vet diet dry food, So i took him along to my vets, who said he needed to come off the tablets because they have bad side effects for long term use {blindness, diabetes’s, etc} and have Hills diet instead {they stock hills }
I have always fed raw diet to my dogs and had no problems before, when i explain this the vet looked puzzled : and said i suppose it can't hurt, and told me to reduce the tablets slowly,
I introduced Bruce to a raw diet slowly, he gain weight and didn’t need the tablets,
and touch wood he hasn’t had any digestion problems since. But I have to watch his diet carefully; he can only have chicken occasionally, as that can upset him.

I would like to give him a supplement / treat to help with this stiffness, and I have read up on lots of products, but this has only confused me, so hopefully someone can recommend something for me to try

hi

this is my fav.....

http://www.trmdog.com/stride-powder.htm

we have had really good results.

I have just started giving my large breed MSM and glucosamine the glucosamine has come from simply supplements buy one get one free and the MSM I ordered from Holland and Barrett on line they had the bottles on offer £3.99 each I bought 4 my OH and I are now taking the MSM too.

Ollie weighs around 70 kg and he has 75 mg of MSM in the morning and the same in an evening meal they suggest giving it over two meals. The glucosamine he has three tablets crushed into his food in the morning as recommended by the supplier dosage is on the bottle. The glucosamine is a dog specific one.

Ollie was on Vetzyme high strength joint supplement but becoming stiff on one his hind legs and after research it suggested large breeds should be on this dosage at the age of 4 and the Vetzyme is nowhere near what he needs. No real change as yet but it does take a while too get into their system.

yes 4-6 weeks on a 'loading dose'

Thank you for the link , I'll have a read up on it, i've never seen this one,

Thank you for your suggestions, i have heard of Vetzyme, it's just so hard to choose which one to go with i tend to research things maybe to much which only gets me more confused thanks for the info

I've heard good things about vetvits, i used them for a while for my gsd when he hurt his hip
http://www.vetvits.co.uk/dog-supplem...-c1786997.aspx

Has he seen a vet about his stiffness? Supplements may do him the world of good but if there's a medical condition behind it then you may need to work out some sort of diagnosis and regime for him - perhaps hydrotherapy to strengthen his muscles, glucosamine and chondroitin, and the possibility of painkillers and something like Cartrophen injections should it worsen. Given his past, he may have some kind of bone/joint problem due to poor nutrition, or it may be an old injury that didn't heal well, or just a touch of arthritis or dysplasia that he may have inherited. Unfortunately big doggies have lots of pressure on their joints and Rotties are a breed prone to joint problems.
The kind of supplement may also depend on the issue, for example, glucosamine and chondroitin are generally the all-round joint supplements, but something like devil's claw may be more effective in a condition like arthritis, because it's a natural anti-inflammatory, whereas if there's no inflammation then it may not have much of an effect.
Also, although a raw diet will provide glucosamine in its natural form (if you can get hold of them, chicken feet are meant to be very high in it naturally!), food can have an effect on health negatively too - I'm not sure if there's a link in dogs and the type of arthritis they get, but human studies show high red meat can be linked to an increased risk of rheumatoid arthritis. I would say a vet trip to find out exactly what you're dealing with would be the first step, and then from there you can find the best treatment, whether that's supplements, medication, hydrotherapy and perhaps complimentary therapies like acupuncture or dog massage, to give him more comfort.

When I first got Jake he could hardly move for stiffness and arthritis. We tried lots of treatments but the best by far was Seatone Green Lipped Mussell tablets from boots. They took abut two weeks to work, giving him one a day with his food and genuinely worked miracles. I always advise people to give them a try. Jake went from being barely able to sit to running around, they were that good!

Hi krlyr, thank you for taking the time to explain a bit about the supplements, it seems to be a bit of a minefield, Bruce has been to the vet, he said no signs of inflammation and that Bruce seems in good condition, he wondered if the stiffness was down to a poor diet when Bruce was a puppy, as what happened to him was in his first year, he only gets the stiffness after the walk, we have cut down a little on the amount of walking we do with him, but i am worried that he also needs some exercise. I like the ideas about hydrotherapy & acupuncture, but in practice I'm afraid that Bruce has issues and they are around water and people hurting him, so i think i will have to stick with supplements.
i didn't know about chicken feet although i don't feed him a lot of chicken i will try giving him some chicken feet {that's rather an easy one} we eat our own chickens
many thanks for the advice
Kay