How How can I monitor the progress of my dog’s osteoarthritis ?

Your dog is less energetic than before, and your vet has told you about osteoarthritis. He will probably have stressed the importance of maintaining a healthy weight, keeping physically active and supplementing your pet’s diet with chondroprotectors or essential fatty acids. Your dog may have been having a painful episode at the time of diagnosis, so your vet will almost certainly have prescribed pain relief for a few days. Now you’d like to know how your pet will progress and what to look out for.

It’s important to remember that osteoarthritis is a non-reversible disease that progresses in painful attacks. The aim of treatment is therefore to slow its progression and maintain your pet’s quality of life and comfort, by limiting the consequences of cartilage degeneration. In order to space out the various painful episodes as much as possible, you will need to pay close attention to your dog’s behaviour on a daily basis. Is he eating as usual? Does he seem to have difficulty getting up, jumping into the car or climbing the stairs? Does he limp? Does he lick himself in a particular place (check in particular the joint affected by osteoarthritis)? Does he look anxious, sad or fearful? Has he become easily irritated?

To keep your pet in good health, we recommend that you take part in moderate daily exercise. Ideally, you should take your pet for 2 x 30-minute walks every day. Don’t hesitate to write down the length of your outings and the routes taken in a notebook. Even easier, use your smartphone: there are even applications specifically developed to track your walks.

As well as keeping track of the duration and intensity of your walks, it’s a good idea to add some additional information, such as :

• Did you keep the lead on throughout the walk? If so, did he pull or stay on the lead? If not, did he run? This information should be related to the dog’s usual behaviour.
• Who stopped the activity?
• For the same amount of effort, do you think he had more difficulty recovering after this session?

Check regularly with your vet, even if there is no painful crisis. Low-level inflammation is always present, without necessarily causing discomfort. This is why omega-3 essential fatty acids can be used continuously: they help to modulate this inflammation and limit inflammatory flare-ups. In the same way, it is always preferable not to let pain take hold, in which case it is more difficult to manage. To this end, the CAPdouleur network has developed an eponymous application, CAPdouleur, CSOM, which enables pet owners and their vets to share pain assessments. If your vet is a member of the CAPdouleur network and considers it necessary, he or she can suggest that you use this tool. You can then work together to devise the most appropriate assessment grid for your 4-legged friend. With this application, you can monitor your pet’s pain score on a daily basis and in its familiar environment. The scores are synchronised and sent to your vet so you can adjust the treatment protocol as soon as possible.

You can already download the CAPdouleur application and fill in the pain assessment questionnaire, which is freely available. This will give you an initial indication of whether or not your dog is suffering from pain, which you can then present to your vet.