When your dog’s cartilage breaks down and its bones start rubbing on each other that’s when you’ve got problems because arthritis in dogs causes them and their owners considerable heartache and pain and no one can bear to see their much loved pet suffer from the pain of arthritis.

What makes it worse is that the disease doesn’t just effect old pets and the symptoms can even occur in puppies. The most common form is osteoarthritis which does tend to effect older dogs because it is a slow and progressive breakdown of your dog’s cartilage where the bones cause pain and discomfort by rubbing against one another. But degenerative joint disease produces the same results whereas hip, elbow or knee dysplasia are all due to malformed ball and joint sockets in your dog.

In the same way bad breeding produces osteochondrosis but what all these conditions share is that they produce arthritis and one of the ways to fight it in dogs is by using glucosamine products and a wide range of these will be available to you through a vet.

But drugs are not the only solution as there are many treatments for arthritis in dogs, both mainstream and alternative, including exercise regimes, weight loss, massage, hydrotherapy and acupuncture, and even the use of magnets, but whichever of these you chose your dog is going to thank you for the help.