The Acupuncture isfor pain relief, and can be done while the dog is on other pain relief medication.
Here`s my boy (the Pointer) who developed Spondylosis when he was 7 or 8. This is his 15th birthday party in the Park with his friends. The vest harness was to help him up and down steps., and he wore that for his last 6 months. .

well I can only go on vets advice and I have seen the spurs on the xrays myself.

Many thanks Maureen

Apparently many humans by time they are middle aged have spondylosis, often just like dogs, they get xrayed for something unrelated and it is noticed. I believe spondylosis in of itself is not necessarily any big deal, apparently it isn't always painful and depends on the dog...even when pretty much the whole vertebrae is fused. what will be noticeable though is a lack of flexibility in the spine.

I've seen vids of dogs who've had fusion all up the spine and still enjoying a full and active life (and no pain killers), so it depends on the dog and not necessarily a condition to be over flapping about.

Anyway, I hope you get your pain meds sorted out in the interim, but it may be just an idea to reassess the dog once the spurs have fused, you may even be able to reduce or even dispense with the meds.

I'm no expert on this, I've just been doing quite a lot of research over the past year on my own dog being diagnosed with a serious spinal condition.

So its not the cervical vertibrae? Only asking as its a known problem in Dobes and having had one myself I would of been able to tell you how I managed it.

Chloe is a 5 year old doberman, she has had spondulosis/litis for a number of years according to an old Xray my vet did of her for something else when she was around 2 years old (but I was never told of this).

Now at 5, she was showing signs of pain to me and I took her to vets they xrayed twice and compared to the old xrays and they can se that the spurs have grown in two places and tell me that they are almost fused on one of them. My vet says that the pain almost stops once fused, but until then he put her on Rimadyl which I dont like from when my last Doberman was on it for 4 years with arthritis in the legs and feet.

My Dobie didnt really get much pain relief with Rimadyl so today I spoke to vet and he has got her now on Metacam and I think (fingers crossed) that this seems to be giving her more relief as she has chased a couple of rabits and seemed to be better when out walking.

I exercise her 4 times a day, 3 of those on short limbering up walks which seem to free up the pain a bit. But the mornings are the worse, she wont eat and looks miserable but is a different dog around 3 in the afternoon when she get her walk in the forest every day.

I am doing my very best as she is only 5 and i am trying to massage her spine too, although I have yet t learn how to do this properly.

I love her and she will be my last dog and had hoped she would go on to around 10 when at this age my others have always died, Dobermans are very short lived dogs and if you manage to get one to 11 you have done something right or luck was with you.

I dont know how this will pan out, I will get her xrayed again in 8 weeks to see if these have fused and also if any other vertibrae are growing spurs (I hope not) although my vet told me one of his own dogs, a spaniel had spurs on every single vertibrae and lived until 15. So hope for us all.

If anyone has any good ending stories about their own dog with this conditon and how they managed it long term I would like to hear some good news. For now I am not going to go down the acupuncture route as right now she needs definate pain relief as she is a tough girl so if she is showing signs of pain, it must be bad.

Thanks to all who have answered me.
Maureen.