Preventative Healthcare & Monitoring
Congratulations on choosing your new Frosted Face! We hope you enjoy many years of happy and healthy companionship! With this in mind we have put together the following advice on how to manage the common ailments and challenges encountered in senior animal care.
Dental Disease: Including Tartar and Periodontitis
Frosted Faces often have severe dental disease when we rescue them, and therefore they will have a thorough dental cleaning with surgical extractions under anaesthetic, where appropriate, and where their general health permits a general anaesthetic. However, whether your Frosted Face has had a dental procedure or if they have not; it is very important that we try and maintain good oral health to try and provide a pain free, good quality of life to our Frosted Faces.
Teeth brushing at least 3 times a week is very helpful, and we would encourage this where your Frosted Face is amenable (this can sometimes require patience and training). Here are some good articles on teeth brushing:
https://veterinarypartner.vin.com/default.aspx?pid=19239&id=4951515
https://veterinarypartner.vin.com/default.aspx?pid=19239&id=4951286
It can however be difficult to “teach an old dog new tricks,” with this in mind, using good dental products that help prevent plaque and tartar build up is also very helpful, even if you are successful in teeth brushing, we would still encourage their use.
Approved veterinary dental products that have been shown to be effective:
http://www.vohc.org/VOHCAcceptedProductsTable_Dogs.pdf
Please note the Hills TD is a very helpful dental diet, however does require a prescription. Please let us know if you would like a prescription. It can be used as a sole diet especially in smaller dogs, or as a treat/% of overall diet in larger dogs. Obviously using this diet assumes your Frosted Faces does not need to be in a prescription diet for any other condition.
Osteoarthritis/Degenerative Joint Disease and Obesity
Arthritis will affect all older dogs to a lesser or greater extent. There are several simple things we can do to help prevent the effects of this on mobility and quality of life:
Maintain a Healthy Body Weight:
It is so important to keep your Frosted Face at a healthy weight; being overweight hugely exacerbates arthritis, and reduces life expectancy considerably. As a rule, you should be able to feel ribs when you run your fingers along the rib cage, and they should have a waist that naturally goes in behind the rib cage. Here is a useful guide to body condition scoring, we are looking to keep our Frosted Faces at a score of 4 or 5.
https://www.royalcanin.com/us/dogs/health-and-wellbeing/how-heavy-should-my-dog-be
Omega 3 Fish Oil:
This has anti-inflammatory effects on the joints (and skin) and is an economical over the counter supplement. It can be given daily for life. We would recommend ‘Webbers Natural’ which is high in the active ingredients DHA and EPA, and is available on Amazon. A good general rule is approx. 100mg per kilo, or 50mg per lb. For example, a 900mg capsule would be fine for a 20lb dog, and 600mg would be fine for a 12lb dog.
Joint Supplement:
A supplement with glucosamine and chondroitin can also be helpful and a good example is Dasuquin, which is available over the counter.
Rest:
When your pet is having a bad day or period, let them rest - no running, and short leash walks only.
Dog Boots:
These boots can be helpful with severe mobility issues, especially on slick surfaces around the home. They have great traction and support and are easy to put on (for us humans) but not so easy for the pups to take off which is great! Here is a good product:
https://www.healerspetcare.com/collections/paw-and-leg-care/products/urban-walkers-iii-teal
Arthritis Drugs:
These can be very effective for arthritic pain. Speak to your veterinarian or ours if you think your Frosted Face needs something to alleviate joint pain and maintain a good quality of life.
External Parasite Prevention
Fleas, ticks and mites, are all common parasites that dogs can get.
Fleas often make dogs very itchy, can cause severe dermatitis in dogs, but rarely spread disease. Whilst fleas are just visible to the naked eye, they are often not seen.
Mites also make dogs very itchy, causing severe skin disease, including scabies and mange. Mites are not visible to the naked eye.
Ticks are larger but can still be hidden by a dog’s coat. Ticks spread disease commonly, including Ehrlichiosis, Anaplasmosis and Lyme disease; which can all be serious life-threatening diseases. Many of these diseases are ‘Zoonotic,’ which means humans can get them too!
We recommend comprehensive external parasite prevention, using any drug in the ‘Isoxazoline’ class, which prevent all of the above. These include:
Bravecto – oral or topical – every 3 monthly
Simparica – oral – monthly
Nexgard – oral – monthly
Credelio – oral – monthly
*Please note, we do not recommend Isoxazolines for any Frosted Face with a history of seizures.
Heartworm is a disease spread by mosquitos and consequently is relatively uncommon in southern California as compared to wetter areas of the country; however, it is becoming increasingly more common, and unfortunately, heartworm is a devastating disease that causes severe clinical signs and ultimately death. Furthermore, heartworm is a very expensive disease to treat and cure, if indeed cure is possible. Therefore, we do recommend heartworm prevention.
Your Frosted Face has been tested for heartworm and was heartworm negative, unless we notify you otherwise. There are several options for prevention, and all have their practical pros and cons, but all are equally effective when used correctly. And any of the following are good options:
Simparica Trio – oral – monthly – covers roundworm, hookworm, and external parasites as above
Heartgard Plus – oral – monthly – covers roundworm and hookworm also
Triheart Plus – oral – monthly – covers roundworm and hookworm also
Proheart 12 – injection – yearly – only covers heartworm
Euthanasia
This is a subject that none of us like to think about, however, it is a very important part of senior dog care and should be something we consider. Euthanasia in Greek means ‘a good death’ and should be considered the last kind thing we can do for our well-loved companions, when the time is appropriate. It can be difficult to know when that time is, and the many emotions we encounter make it difficult to be objective. In this regard, we at Frosted Faces Foundation are here for you, to offer advice and provide medical assessment, whenever you need us. With this in mind, below is a great article on Veterinary Partner that includes a quality-of-life assessment scale, which you can use anytime to assess your Frosted Face’s quality of life, to help ensure you are aware when your Frosted Face does not have or is heading toward not having an acceptable quality of life:
https://veterinarypartner.vin.com/default.aspx?pid=19239&id=4951966
Other common older dog diseases:
There are many other common senior dog diseases we may encounter, including:
Hypothyroid
Cushings
Inflammatory Bowel Disease
Urinary incontinence
Cancers; including lymphoma, mast cell tumours, hemangiosarcoma
In all cases, having knowledge of those diseases will greatly enhance your understanding and in turn ability to help provide the best possible care to your Frosted Face. There is a great website called Veterinary Partner written by veterinarians in simple terms, and provides information on most common conditions: