Time flies .... Lady was 8 years old on Saturday and I had her booked for a check up at the vet's today. She has ED and was operated on when she was about 3 years old and it's been very successful except for a tendency that developed about 3 years ago for her to get acute pain if she turned sharply to the right. Our vet suggested trying Cartrophen. He reckoned it seemed to work in some dogs but not in others but it was worth a try. He thought Lady was getting some bone-to-bone contact on tight turns and hence the pain. The Cartrophen has been very successful. Pain gone and minor limping gone, but I gather it's a bit of a lottery as to whether it works or not and whether the dog can tolerate it or not. She goes back once a year for a course of 4 jabs and this was the reason for the visit today. Anyway, back to the vet visit. His verdict was her elbows are in really good fettle - she could feature in advertisements for Cartrophen. Her musculature is beautifully defined with only a bit of muscle loss at the shoulder presumably because she favours her hind legs when pushing on. A big well done ( ) for getting her weight down from 32 kg to 29 kg. And all in all she's doing well and is a beautiful looking Labrador. I put the weight loss down mainly to a change in her diet to high protein kibble. She seems to do much better on it than before when she was on a more usual kibble - more energy, weight has come off, bangs the bowl around getting the last taste out of it, not on the beg for more all the time! Anyway I thought I'd report that as I'm really rather pleased with it all.
That's really good news. So important to keep an eye on the waistline as one gets that bit older... Humans and dogs both!! Good job you - and actually we could do with some photos of the beautiful SBD.
Well we are off to Cornwall for a week from tomorrow, so I'll take some pics and post them up while we are down there. She's actually not much different to her pic in the Avatar but that was taken when she was 2 years old as far as I recall.
Oh that lovely! Casper had his 8 year check up recently...and he is in fine fettle, it is such a relief to know all is well, especially her joints Oh Casper says Hi Lady...( he does like the more mature and refined ladies...)
That's good news. (Is the SBD really eight already?!) Happy Birthday for last Saturday, Lady and enjoy your holiday in Cornwall.
