Monday, July 9, 2012

Hip Dysplasia: Prevention & Treatment part 1

A topic on hip dysplasia is probably one of the longest to cover. I will start with the basics.

Hip dysplasia can affect dogs of all breeds. It is a crippling condition and in worst cases leaves owners no choice but to put their cherished dog to sleep.

Let's start with prevention and what we do to our dogs in order to prevent hip dysplasia and elbow dysplasia. I am not a veterinarian but I'll be referring to my own experience and studies described in the following book written by doctor Wendell Belfield:
 

I purchased this book 2 years ago and I do highly recommend it to all of dog owners who want to have a healthy dog. Doctor Belfield covers his life-long veterinarian practice and shares advice based on his research on how to prevent and treat hip dysplasia with the help of vitamins.

Vitamin C is the 'super-star' vitamin. And it plays a major part in preventing hip dysplasia in your dog. Just by adding some vitamin C into your puppy's diet will reduce the chances of developing this crippling illness in the future of the dog.

I understand it this way - dogs produce their own vitamin C, unlike us humans. But some canine individuals are worse vitamin C producers than others. By supplementing your pup with this 'super-star' vitamin, you are not gambling anymore on whether your pup in particular is a good or bad producer of vitamin C.

So what does vitamin C do when it comes to hip dysplasia? Well, the answer is quite simple actually. It helps the body produce collagen, that is neccessary for the body to build connective tissues in the joints. When we people do not consume any foods containing vitamin C we literally fall apart, right? The same thing happens to dogs.

In order to begin the prevention plan, I just followed dr. Belfield's advice and purchased sodium ascorbate powder (non-acidic form of vitamin C) and started adding it to my puppie's food daily.

When Zella was a tiny pup, newly arrived, I immediately put her on a vitamin C supplement, with her very first meal at our home. She is over 1.5 y.o. now and she is still on her daily vitamin C regime, just like all the other 3 dogs in our pack.

Vitamin C helps a lot when you are already treating a dysplastic dog, but I will be covering the treatment topic in one of my next posts.
The following brands of vitamin C in the sodium ascorbate form have been tested by our dogs and are proven great quality products:

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for sharing this post with us. I am little bit interested to get more information about Canine Hip Dyplesia. I like to share my opinion on Canine Hip Dyplesia.Dorsal Acetabular Rim (DAR) - This surgical procedure consists of bone grafts being taken from different areas of the pelvis to construct up the rim on the hip socket (cup). The concept is for the femoral head to have a deeper socket to suit into. It is comparatively new, so there's some query as to how a canine will do into previous age - there aren't many older canines which have had it completed. Allover this is a great blog. If you want to know more about this visit here Canine Hips.

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