* WORMING: Worm the dog every three months. Continue giving daily or monthly heartworm preventative treatment. * VET CHECKUPS. Take your dog to your vet’s regularly for a checkup and its annual vaccination, particularly against distemper, hepatitis, parvovirus and parainfluenza. The risk of disease increases with age, so careful observation of any change in your [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Elderly dog’
* EXERCISE: Exercise is important to maintain muscle tone and joint flexibility. It also stimulates the dog to urinate and defaecate which assists in preventing cystitis and constipation. You can encourage exercise by putting the dog outside regularly or by taking it for a walk. * SLEEPING AREA: Provide an area for sleeping which is [...]
* MEDICATION: Your vet may recommend the use of anabolic steroids to prevent wasting, geriatric tablets to counteract the ageing process, and anti-inflammatory agents to improve mobility. * GROOMING: Regular grooming helps the dog to look and feel better, and prevents skin problems associated with a matted dirty coat.
* Proper nutrition: As dogs get older, their ability to digest and absorb nutrients is reduced. Feed your dog smaller meals of high quality food more often. The diet should contain a greater amount of vitamins, zinc, essentail fatty acids and fibre. Add a specially formulated dog and vitamin supplement to diet. Do not use [...]
The signs vary with individual dogs and may develop so slowly that they go unnoticed until they are advanced and obvious. The common signs are: * Reduced sense of sight and hearing. Your dog does not respond to your call and/or it bumps into objects and seems disorientated. * Reduced appetite which may be due [...]
It is difficult to set an average age for the life span of dogs in general as there are such variations in age from breed to breed and dog to dog. In practice, the larger the dog, the shorter the life span, e.g. the life span of a Great Dane is eight to ten years, [...]
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