Ali HamzaWhen your beloved furry friend begins to start slowing down as they get older, it can be very sad. As in human beings, it’s not a strange occurrence that animals experience stiff joints now and again. However, if the frequent jittery periods of stiffness become commonplace, or your pet’s lively fun suddenly turns to a refusal to jump up or go up stairs, your concerns are stirred. After all, you will eventually find yourself seeking professional guidance on pet arthritis to find out what is causing the ailment of your pet.
While the dog and cat’s body is quite resilient, the joints have to deal with years of wear and tear, and chronic inflammation is a very common ailment. You should seek the cause of your pet’s joint stiffness and ensure that your pet is in good health and comfortable. Often, chronic slowing down is just part of a larger problem and should be considered as a marker of a deeper problem in the skeletal system or daily management.
This detailed and comprehensive article will dissect the biological and environmental factors that contribute to joint degeneration, as well as medical conditions that could explain why pets struggle to move, and help you determine whether it’s something that will pass or if there’s a medical condition that you should consult your vet about.
Let's first examine the Biology of Pet Arthritis, a degenerative joint disease, and then read through the list of chronic diseases.
Osteoarthritis slowly wears away the protective cartilage that pads the ends of the bones in a joint. Protected smooth cartilage matrix senses a constant friction or repeated mechanical stress, the protective tissue deteriorates completely.
This results in the underlying bones rubbing together directly, producing tremendous friction. The joint inflames a great deal and the body tries to make the area more stable with the development of abnormal bony projections known as osteophytes (bone spurs).
When you start looking into pet arthritis, you’ll be facing anything that triggers this painful inflammatory cycle.
Main groups of pet arthritis causes and Indicators:
When your dog or cat starts to show signs of trouble with mobility, there are three main groups of pet arthritis causes and indicators: developmental skeletal conditions, lifestyle hazards, and natural biological changes. There are 10 common pet arthritis causes.
1. Hip and Elbow Dysplasia
The most prevalent cause of early pet arthritis is, without doubt, skeletal malformations, which are known as Hip and Elbow DysplasiaS. Diseases like hip dysplasia and elbow dysplasia are when a joint doesn’t develop square, which leads to the ball and socket grinding against each other. A pet that is born with such genetic structural defects will have abnormal friction within the joint capsule throughout their lives. When cartilage is gone, your pet will suddenly show signs of pain, lameness and stiffness from joint instability, rapid wear or growth spurts.
2. Excess Body Weight and Obesity
Excess body weight is another big time cause of severe pet arthritis. It is a very aggressive lifestyle factor that can have a detrimental effect on dogs’ and cats’ long-term joint health. Extra pounds on your pet’s body due to a high fat diet and/or inadequate activity put a tremendous strain on the joints that were never meant to carry such a heavy burden. This pairing leads to a significantly accelerated degradation of cartilage, and pets will not want to play or exercise due to the discomfort.
3. Cranial Cruciate Ligament (CCL) Tears
Dogs often tear the cranial cruciate ligament (CCL) which is similar to a human tearing an ACL. This injury to the structure is a huge contributor to pet arthritis since the whole knee joint is now totally unstable. If the tibia slides irregularly up and down under the femur, the meniscus cartilage which protects the femur can easily break down. If the structural instability is not corrected in a timely fashion, your dog is at a high risk of suffering from severe and rapid joint deterioration in that leg.
4. Natural Aging and Cellular Wear
When it comes to joint health, there is a common denominator: Natural Aging and Cellular WearTime. With aging, dogs and cats just naturally produce less of the cartilage matrix’s necessary building blocks, called glycosaminoglycans. The absence of natural lubrication leads to dry lining of the joint and means that it will immediately rub together or become stiff the first time your pet moves after a long nap or when it wakes early on a cold morning.
5. High Impact Jumping Injuries
Chronic micro-trauma can occur with high impact jumping injuries when your pet has been jumping for many years or off high furniture and starts to show signs of joint pain. Frequent jumping from heights to hard surfaces can create micro fractures in the bone and small tears in the cartilage. High impact household habits are one of the easier to change causes of your cat or dog slowing down because of repeated damage to the joints that it causes.
6. Slipping Kneecaps (Patellar Luxation)
Slipping Kneecaps (patellar luxation)Skeletally, the patella (kneecap) should be positioned in a deep groove at the front of the knee and glide smoothly. In some small dog breeds and some cats, however, the kneecap often completely pops out of the groove. These mechanical dislocations are important factors that alter the alignment of the leg and are important causes of progressive pet arthritis. The sliding movement needs to be properly managed and should be monitored carefully by a vet.
7. Historical Fractures and Joint Trauma
Physical injuries can have a lasting effect if they were suffered in the past, as Historical Fractures and Joint TraumaPets are naturally adventurous. Fractures of small bone fragments that occurred years ago and/or severe bouts of spraining and straining a joint often heal with subtle structural realignment changes. This results in an unbalanced transfer of weight over the smooth surface of cartilage. If the strain is not evenly distributed, the pet will have a gradual, ongoing recurrence of stiffness in the same leg that had been hurt.
8. Tick-Borne Diseases (Lyme Disease)
Another type of systemic infection that could affect a pet’s joint health is tick-borne diseases (Lyme Disease). A deer tick that is infected with Lyme disease infects the dog or cat by transferring the bacteria into the joint capsules. This can be a deep bacterial infection that breaks into the local tissues, and may lead to acute and severe joint swelling. A common overlooked cause of sudden, episodic changes in lameness in active dogs is tick-borne polyarthritis, which can resemble typical skeletal inflammation.
9. Poor Feline Muscle Mass (Sarcopenia)
If older cats have mobility problems that do not respond to treatment, they may have embedded Poor Feline Muscle Mass (Sarcopenia). Some thinning of lean body tissue can occur along the rear quarters, a normal aging process or due to metabolic changes. One of the more serious indirect causes of feline joint pain is a decrease in muscle mass, which can cause the underlying joints to bear the brunt of the shock and impact of the daily walk.
10. Immune-Mediated Polyarthritis (IMPA)
Immune-Mediated Polyarthritis (IMPA)Systemic autoimmune conditions are uncommon but devastating conditions in which the immune system attacks tissues within the body. These diseases do not begin with wear and tear, but with your pet being completely susceptible to extensive and extreme joint damage. One of the many biological reasons why pets develop arthritis can be an overactive immune system, causing normal healthy joint linings to become the source of chronic destructive pain.
Here are a few tips on helping your dog with stiffness.
There are a number of easy home care techniques you can implement while you are working with your vet to determine the exact cause of the joint issues, to keep your pet more comfortable while waiting for your veterinarian’s advice:
Provide orthopedic bedding
Invest in a thick, high-density memory foam orthopedic bed for your pet. The soft and supportive foam distributes the weight evenly throughout their body, minimizing painful pressure points on the stiff elbows and hips.
Use non-slip flooring:
Hardwood or tile floors can be slippery, so use non-slip rubber mats or carpet runners to prevent your pets from slipping and hyperextending their joints
Use pet ramps and steps
Do not make your pet jump off high furniture or off a high vehicle door step; use specially made pet ramps in the areas where your pet sleeps or spends most of his or her time.
Gently warm the stiffest joints:
Place a warm, safe heating pad, wrapped in a towel, against the affected area and massage for 10-15 minutes to promote blood flow and relax tight muscles, but avoid over-warming or irritating the skin.
Conclusion
It is important to carefully assess your pet’s lifestyle, home environment and physical symptoms to identify the actual pet arthritis causes. While it may be a little bit of stiffness here and there after a long day of running, if they’re having difficulty standing over and over it should not be ignored. By listening to those signs your pet is giving, your veterinarian will have all the information he needs to get your pet moving more comfortably and help pinpoint your pet’s joint discomfort.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
A1: If a pet begins to slow down but is obviously not vocalizing with pain, then there is likely no problem.
A: A pet may appear to be moving slowly with good appetite, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are not in a lot of pain. Chronic arthritis in animals is ingrained in them by evolution to hide it, so subtle changes in behaviour, such as animals not wanting to go up and down stairs or overall loss of energy, are a common indicator of chronic arthritis.
Q2: Do indoor cats get joint diseases like osteoarthritis?
A: Yes, cats can indeed suffer from degenerative joint diseases, even those kept indoors. Research indicates that a high percentage of older dogs have arthritis but the condition does not manifest itself in high jumps, and is easy to overlook for any cat owner who keeps her cats indoors.
Q3: What are some medical emergencies that may occur and something that should be noted if a pet is having trouble getting around?
A: If you notice a sudden complete loss of use in the rear legs, your dog doesn’t eat for over 24 hours, or if your dog is very lethargic, weeps when handled and pants heavily while resting, then a mobility problem should be given a medical priority.
grovercentervet
