The Ultimate Guide to Keeping Your Senior Dog Active and Healthy

Dog Activities

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The Key to Aging Well

We often wonder what we can do to help our aging furry friends stay healthy and happy. The keys to aging well for senior pets are no secret: a good diet, exercise, and mental stimulation, including social interaction, all play a crucial role in their well-being. The age at which dogs enter their golden years is influenced by factors like breed, size, and environment. Although most pets are considered seniors at around seven years old, the age range can vary from 5-10 years. Smaller breeds and mixes tend to live longer than larger dogs. So, how can we improve the quality of life for our senior pets through exercise and enrichment?

Health Conditions Affecting Exercise

Before starting any new exercise program with your senior dog, it’s essential to have a veterinary assessment including bloodwork, thyroid screening, urinalysis, and fecal testing, to ensure they receive the best diet and exercise recommendations. Your vet can also suggest charts to monitor your dog’s body condition, muscle mass, and pain scale at home. Changes in these scores may indicate a need to adjust your dog’s exercise routine. Keep an eye out for weight gain, loss of muscle mass, limping, soreness, joint sensitivity, fatigue, licking of joints, or slow movement, as these can indicate pain and soreness. As pets age, they may develop health conditions that affect their ability to exercise. These conditions include anemia, collapsing trachea, laryngeal paralysis, and osteoarthritis. These conditions can make it difficult for your pet to get the oxygen needed for exercise, cause joint pain, and reduce stamina.

Tips for Safe and Effective Exercise

Once your veterinarian has given the green light to a new exercise routine, it’s important to gradually increase the intensity and duration and make sure to take plenty of water and rest breaks. To ensure your senior dog can safely participate in physical activities, consider using ramps instead of stairs, providing soft bedding, and walking or running on grassy surfaces. Since older pets are at a higher risk of injury and may be less adaptable, it’s best to avoid abrupt movements, tug-of-war games if they have oral pain, or exercising in extreme temperatures. Additionally, warming up with a light walk or jog and cooling down for 5-10 minutes can be helpful. Muscle massage and passive range of motion exercises can keep your senior dog limber and reduce lactic acid buildup, which can speed up recovery time.

Adapting Canine Sports

With proper conditioning, your senior dog can still participate in exercises and sports they’ve always enjoyed, including walking, running, hiking, and swimming. Swimming, in particular, is a great low-impact exercise option. However, seasonal activities may require extra pre-season training to re-establish muscle strength and stamina, so allow 6-8 weeks for conditioning. A sports and rehab vet can recommend specific exercises tailored to your pet’s needs, like balance board work or underwater treadmill therapy. Many canine sports have senior dog offerings modified for their abilities, such as shorter distances in lure coursing or lower jump heights and broader spacing in agility competitions. Your older dog’s other senses, such as smell and sight, maybe just as acute as a younger dog, making field and hunting trials, scent work, obedience, or trick classes great activities for you to enjoy together.

Maintaining Ideal Weight and Muscle Mass

It becomes harder for dogs to gain muscle mass as they age. If your senior dog is already healthy, your goal should be to maintain their muscle mass to reduce joint pain and improve their mobility and quality of life. To achieve this, you can adjust their diet by increasing their protein intake, reducing fat, and cutting down on calories. Dog food that contains omega-3 fatty acids can help reduce inflammation, and dog food with glucosamine and chondroitin can help prevent arthritis in large-breed dogs.

Mental Enrichment

In addition to physical exercise, mental stimulation is equally crucial in enhancing the quality of life of your senior dog. You can explore various activities to provide new and exciting experiences to your furry friend. For instance, you can visit pet-friendly establishments or join a therapy dog group after certification. Occasionally visiting assisted living communities can also be a great idea. You can also try food puzzles or introduce toys with different textures to keep your senior dog engaged. Taking your dog on a new walking path and allowing them to sniff and explore at their pace is also a great way to stimulate their mind. Additionally, getting a new pet can rejuvenate your older dog’s mental state and reignite their enthusiasm for life. As your dog grows older, keep finding creative ways to strengthen your bond and enrich their life.

At Pet Butler, we want you and your pet to live your best and healthiest lives, which is why we offer pet waste removal and other services year-round. We offer weekly, bi-weekly, monthly and one-time clean-up services to work with your schedule and needs.

Obesity in Senior Pets

Pet Health

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Much like people, our beloved furry friends experience physical decline as they age. Because of this, they are more likely to gain weight as they get older.

Perhaps you’ve seen the pounds adding on as your pet ages despite maintaining the same feeding, walking and general health routines you’ve followed for years. It can be frustrating and confusing seeing your pet travel down this road. You might question why it’s happening and what you can do about it.

Why Senior Pets Gain Weight

It’s valuable to understand the variety of health complications that can arise as your pets grow older and their role in this challenging subject. Many times, weight gain in senior pets is caused by a purely medical reason. Among a few medical ailments, two of the most common illnesses we see in older pets surrounding weight gain are hypothyroidism and hyperadrenocorticism (Cushing’s disease).

Hypothyroidism

Hypothyroidism is a condition wherein your pet’s thyroid gland, a gland that produces metabolism-controlling hormones, is underactive. When the thyroid produces too little of these metabolic hormones, weight gain and other symptoms can develop. It’s especially prevalent in larger dogs.

Cushing’s disease

Cushing’s disease impacts the body in a similar manner. With this endocrine disorder, often caused by overmedication, too much cortisol is being produced or administered to your pet. This steroid also controls metabolic rates and other bodily functions and can result in systemic weight gain.

Arthritis

Arthritis is also prevalent in older pets. Carrying extra weight compounds the stress on joints making movement more painful, decreasing the ability to exercise and causing more weight gain. Ouch!

Heart or respiratory disease

Heart or respiratory disease can cause your senior pet to gain weight. It can decrease your dog’s exercise tolerance making weight loss an even greater uphill battle.

Weight Loss Tips for Senior Dogs

The bottom line is that these weight-related issues often arise secondary to other factors, and it’s best to seek assistance from your trusted pet professionals to understand exactly what changes are happening to your pet. Fortunately, there is a myriad of ways you can support your pet in their later years, like changing feeding and exercise behaviors and treating any underlying health concerns.

Assess your pet’s food

In addition to determining appropriate caloric intake, look at the nutritional breakdown of the food you’re providing your companion. You’ll want to purchase premium adult formulas, watching out for artificial additives, preservatives and other chemicals that might be thrown into the mix.

For older dogs, look for products that are high in protein, medium in fat and low in carbohydrate composition. Protein strengthens the immune system and supports the central nervous system, benefits of which are highly valuable to our aging pets.

Monitor water intake

On a similar note, it’s important to monitor the amount of water your pet is drinking. If you’ve noticed an excessive intake of water by your aging pet, this could be indicative of liver, kidney or endocrine disease. As with anything, moderation is key. Too much or too little intake of fluids should raise concern and should be discussed with your veterinarian.

Maintain an exercise routine

In an ideal world, your pet’s exercise behaviors and general activity shouldn’t decline as they age. For dogs, two 30-minute walks a day should be a part of your daily routine. If that’s not the case, incorporate walks or find other ways to exercise your dog’s body and mind. Not only will this combat aging-induced weight gain, but it will also enhance their metabolism and provide mental stimulation.

If your pet is struggling to keep up while exercising, start with shorter, slower walks with plenty of breaks so they can catch their breath. Make sure the ambient temperature is comfortable for your dog, too. Incorporate some hills and bursts of speed as they build strength and duration.

A great alternative to walking for older dogs is swimming. Not only is swimming a full-body workout but it’s also easier on their body, specifically their joints. As a low impact, non-weight bearing form of exercise, swimming is a fantastic way of elevating metabolism, decreasing inflammation and enhancing circulation in your pup. There’s no shame in putting your dog in a life vest for safety, as doggy paddling isn’t an inborn ability!

Feeding your senior pet the proper food for their age, breed and lifestyle and maintaining an exercise routine can be the answers to helping your fur-ever friend lose necessary weight; however, it’s important to remember that weight gain in older pets can be caused by underlying health issues.

Obesity in senior pets can be linked to hypothyroidism, hyperadrenocorticism (Cushing’s disease), arthritis, respiratory challenges, heart disease and a slew of other issues. If you’re concerned about behavioral and physical changes in your older pet, don’t hesitate to reach out to your veterinarian. Put your worries to rest and find the best ways to support your pet.

 

At Pet Butler, we want you to be able to focus on your pet’s health and livelihood. Let us take care of the dirty work. We offer poop scooping services that can occur weekly, every other week or monthly. We even offer cleanup for a special occasion, party or holiday weekend.

 

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