Food For Hip Troubles

I posted this on another board and only had a few responses. I have a 2.5 year old dog that was destined for the show ring and agility, however he injured hisRight hip and now it subluxates when he is walking. His hips were OFA's prior to the injury and looked great, but he messed it up with the tendons somehow and now he will live life as a couch potato.....I know I spoiled him so even though he will never go BIS he will always be my BIS.
I have been all over the board with him on food, His first year and half I fed cooked and raw, although he can't handle raw well. I have tried almost every brand of good food.
I want some suggestions on people with large breed as to what they are feeding, maybe some from people with hip problem dogs , he gets Nupro and Synovicre3 supplements interchanged.
I prefer to feed natural foods only and prefer those with Chicken over the twice cooked Chicken Meal.
So send me your thoughts.
He is about 100 pounds and a Redbone Coonhound, and eve though we have stopped agailty training he is full of energy and is hard to keep weight on. He likes canned food too but he eats alot and that is alot of $$

Thanks
Claudette

The best possible advice I can give you is to refer you to Mordy's site. You'll find a link to it in her signature. Mordy is the Food Guru

My big 'uns (2 Filas and a rescued GSD/wolf) are stunning and in almost obscenely good condition on the Innova EVO and raw food. I like to give them raw chicken, especially, as chicken cartilage is where one of the joint supporting nutrients (sorry, can't remember if it was chondroitin or glucosamine) is found. It also keeps their teeth gorgeous, lol! I stay away from liver and kidneys as I really don't want to load the dogs down with the toxins stored in those organs . . .

Mordy can give you good specific advice on the best nutritional support for your Redbone.

you aren't going to make a difference with food itself. while a good diet does help (and i'd definitely lean towards home cooked rather than commercial if he doesn't tolerate raw), you need a supplement for a therapeutic effect.

for dietary supplementation i recommend a good glucosamine supplement -cosequin, or generic is also fine, just make sure it's high quality human grade.

talk to your vet about adequan injections (polysulfated glycosaminoglycan). if you go the adequan route, make sure you follow the package insert completely. especially the "loading dose" is critical. you will be giving these injections at home and after some time you can taper off intervals between injections as needed.

as a support, acupuncture and chiropractic treatments do wonders.

i'm sure you know this already, but keep his weight down. a little too thin is better than a little too heavy, since each extra pound will put additional stress on the skeleton. so don't work too hard to "keep weight on him", being on the thin side will benefit him more.

as for "prefer chicken over the twice cooked chicken meal", keep in mind that if fresh chicken meal is used, you will have a much lower meat content in the finished product, since ingredients are listed in order of descending weight before processing. so an ingredient list that reads e.g. "chicken, white rice, brown rice, barley" before processing would read "white rice, brown rice, barley, chicken" after the process, leaving you with a product that has an effective meat content of only around 15-30% in most products.

the best foods contain both fresh meats and concentrated sources, but if i had to pick between two otherwise identical products of which one has fresh meat and the other a meat meal, i'd definitely pick the second one.

With my Rottweiler with Hip Dysplasia I give her Yucca root as an anti-inflammatory...it's natural and I am thrilled with the results. You could try a prepared supplement such as Syn-Flex which has Yucca in it. I would also try to get more Omega 3 fatty acids in your dogs diet....I do this by adding about a tablespoon full of Hemp seed oil in my dogs food daily (it has the perfect ratio). I also give canned sardines, salmon 4 or more meals a week. Flax seed oil is great as well, make sure it's cold pressed, organic and is in the fridge of your grocery store...it goes rancid when not refridgerated.

Swimming is great exercise for a with dog with hip problems. I also have a Newf at home (10 years old) who tore her ACL - just a partial tear but she's too old to operate on. I use the same techniques for her as I do with my Rottweiler and she is doing fantastic. I currently feed my dogs Natures Variety and supplement with thier whole food blend and Salmon oil bend. You can also get the freeze dried dog food which your dog may like...and if not then you havent invested that much money into it . I rotoate their food from Nature's variety to Natura (perferably EVO) the higher protein content the less inflammation.

Good luck to you, and good for you for pulling the dog from the show ring. I see too many people get titles on dysplasitic and other genetic horrors by just pumping them full of rymadil or Metacam before the show.

THanks for the suggestions....however his problem is not a genetic one but rather an injury as before this his x-rays looked fine. But he is a hard active dog and takes many spills and tumbles and obviously must have turned the wrong way. I would love to show him however a judge would dismiss him as he is what they call lame. However since this is not a problme he was born with I hope to either have him heal later in life to maybe do some type of work that is not as hard on his joints and title him that way.

I have him on supplements that I mentioned in the first post, the Synovicre 3 and the Nupro which are full of things to help the hips, it was that he is a picky eater and there in lies the trouble. I talked to Royal Canine and bought a bag of their Lab food and he really likes it , I also bought a bag of Natural Balance and he didn't touch it, I tried Evo and he left it in the bowl for 3 days. I have always allowed him to choose his food and keep around 3-4 brands in stock at a time all in seperate dishes. I figure I like change and he does too, I also then give home cooked and or either canned.

I don't know what to add to this thread lol but whatever you do, DO NOT feed tomatoes or any types of peppers..these only make joint problems WORSE...

lol that was probably pointless of me to say though *blushes*

I agree with Athes... but am curious as to what age you started agility . I'm not blaming you for this, but I had ALOT of problems with owners of some of my Golden pups wanting them to grow fast and doing high leaps for sticks and frizzbys at an early age. I mainly want young owners with young pups to be careful not to over extend before a year old.

Hmmmm . . . I'd definitely try feeding raw if I were you. It can't hurt, and it might be just the ticket for him. It's absolutely a good way to control what he's getting!

I didn't start agility formal training until he was 2 years old. Up until then it was free exercise and he would run with my friend but that didn't start until he was almost 2 years old. This injury is new and believe me he is a hound and stubborn. He was still doing lower jumps but he is clumsy being a hound anddidn't always take corners welland was known to plough into other dogs while playing. WHen he was about 6 months old he knocked his front leg out of socket by having a boxer hit into him while they were running around at about 90 miles an hour. The vet thinks he made a wrong turn or something , he said dogs can tear their ACLs in strage ways too....