Osteo Bi-Flex for Dogs??

[Robert]

My golden is 9 years old. The vet suggested that I give him glucosamine/condroitin because he is now having a little problem getting up and down as fast as he used to. I bought Joint Kare by urPets which has 250 mg glucosamine and no condroitin. It was expensive since he is recommended to take 5 tablets a day since he weighs 92 pounds. My grandmother has several bottles of Osteo-Bi-Flex (with 1500 mg of glucosamine and 1250 mg condroitin) but she is not taking it anymore (says it's not working for her). Can I give one tablet to Barney a day since it's cheaper?

[Connie Nawaz]

Generally, I have been told by my friend, who was an wild animal rehibilitator and a went to school to be a veterinarian, that human medicine is usually not safe for animals. Our bodies work way different than theirs do, and even different animals bodies work different from each other. She told me of so many cases where people would bring in their dead cats, who died suddenly, and want to know why they died. In every case, the owners had given the cats aspirin, which they will not throw up for some reason, and it starts shutting down their livers or kidneys right away. Dogs, if you give them aspirin, which is just as toxic to them, will throw it up. Why one species will throw it up when the other won't I don't know. Even animal testing of human drugs in labs doesn't make sense. Just because a certain product or drug is proven safe on the test animals, doen't mean that it will be safe for humans or even work the same way. Just look at how many new drugs have been tested in labs and been proven to help a certain illness, and when humans start taking them, people have gotten serious side effects, even dying from the drugs.
So I guess my whole point is, make sure to ask your vet, making sure you explain what drug you are thinking of giving your dog, even though they may sound the same, there could be other added ingredients that could possibly harm your dog. I always better safe then sorry.

[Sandy & Roxy & Junior]

Robert, I just wanted to tell you about Joint-Eze. It's by Sergeants and it works remarkably well. I have a blog on my page talking about it...and best of all, Joint-Eze is very inexpensive, at 60 chews per container, it lasts Junior 2 weeks (he's 111lbs) and one container costs about $6. He LOVEs it, too!