The SBD will be 9 in September which I guess is starting to get on in Labrador years, but old age seems to have come a bit quick. Quite suddenly she's become very slow and reluctant to go any great distance and would prefer to just lie down and watch the world go by. I guess her elbows don't help. The ED is becoming more apparent these days. It's not entirely down to that, though. Her entire demeanour has become "old dog". I've got her booked in to the vet for her annual cartrophen injections in a couple of weeks - about 2 months earlier than normal because of her obvious increasing stiffness. She'll get a really good check up then to make sure there is no underlying problem, but, hey, this is all happening to fast for me. We were on holiday in Cornwall the week before last. We go every year walking. This year we only did short walks and included lots of beaches. The SBD loves the beach and there were flashes of young puppy coming out from time to time and lots of swimming. Time seems to pass just a little too swiftly with our dogs?
So swiftly, but I would do what you're doing and gave her thoroughly checked over. I had my dogs scanned full blood work ups and xrays when they were about 10/12 when they slowed down just to make sure nothing had been missed. It's been a long cold winter so it's played havoc with a lot of old joints. Hope she's ok xx
Ah, hope all is ok with the SBD. It's been very hot here, and none of the dogs want to do anything much... could the heat be affecting her?
Bless her. Im sure the constant changes in weather hasn’t helped. Fingers crossed All is well at the vets x
Lilly has been particularly inactive too, and I have reduced her walks. She chased a rabbit (scent) yesterday morning on our walk at 9am before it was too warm. When she returned a few minutes later I popped her on the lead to slow her down, but she panted all the way home and took a good 20mins once back home to recover. Hopefully the vet will giver her the all clear and she gets her oomph back, David. x
I think the heat is a factor but the big "slow down" started well before the weather warmed up. She hates the heat though and black has to be the worst colour for that. She lies on the kitchen stone floor a lot in hot weather and uses it as a bed at night. Funnily enough she did get a bit of oomph back last night. I've decided to abandon the Margaret Thatcher gardening method (Hands off approach followed by severe cutting back) and recover the garden from nature. In doing so I found a tugger toy and we played with that with Lady doing some real butt tucking hooning around an apple tree! We both had to sit down for a rest after that.
