Dear old Morph, our beloved red setter, is 11 now. He's had excellent health for the past 3 years (I stopped paying for insurance when he was 8 because the premiums were too high, and it was a good move) but for the last couple of longer-than-usual walks he has come back very knackered. On Monday, I took him to the vet to get an assessment of how he's doing. They checked all his joints, his heart and lungs and did some blood tests to assess his kidney and liver functions. Everything came back tickety-boo apart from his joints. They are arthritic, and his wrists especially so. This is not at all surprising for a 30kg active 11-year-old dog. He had a pain-killing injection and the vet seemed to expect me to start shelling out for lots of expensive treatment.
The problem is, on his normal walk, he's fine. He trots around in a very sprightly fashion showing no sign whatever of any pain. If he finds a ball or a stick he's happy to chase it - slowly - and is still very playful. Most evenings he comes to me for entertainment, which usually involved bouncing a ball and him trying to intercept it, and his reactions are still quick enough that he can biff it away with a paw and steal it from me.
The vet phoned back this morning with the result of the blood tests and Mrs. Wow took the call. She told the vet all of the above, but the vet made the comment "He's probably in pain all the time but dogs can be but just don't show it." My immediate question would have been "How do you know?" Does the vet get the dog to fill in a questionnaire describing its pain on a scale of 1 to 10?
The expense is one thing, but I have no desire to lumber Morphy's final year or two on this mortal coil with all sorts of unnecessary treatment and stressful visits to the vet. I'm very inclined just to cut out the longer walks and, if and when the shorter ones become a problem, have a rethink. My very good friend Peliroja of this parish has had some extremely helpful things to say about salmon oil and a supplement named Seraquin.
What does the panel think?