Female Chihuahua dog strugles with steps

Question
Hi Jana:

I have an 8 years old female Chihuahua that lately has been strugling with stairs.

My backyard and several of the rooms from my house have small steps and she can almost never climb them.

We took her to the veterinary several years ago and he immediately wanted to perform surgery but we were advised by other people that she would suffer a lot and it was not probably going to take her problem away.

Lately I have been reading about pet supplements for this condition and was wondering if you have any experience with them (like glucosamine).

In the meantime I plan to build some kind of a ramp and place it on the stairs so she can go up and down with no problems.

Thanks and your help is greatly appreciated,
Roberto

Answer
First of all Roberto, it depends on what this "condition" is. You don't say in your question what the vet said she has.

It sounds to me like she has either luxating patellas (her knees) or a spinal problem. Glucosamine can help some with the spinal issue but it doesn't help quite as much for a knee issue, mostly because a knee cap that pops out is a mechanical problem. The groove in the cartilage in the knee is too shallow and the patella 'rides' along that groove. When the dog is active or flexes the joint too much the knee cap tends to pop out of that groove.

There are vets who claim to have success treating this condition with supplements but I don't know of any personally.

You can do a search in here (Allexperts.com) on treating patella dislocation with supplements. I read years ago some old answers on that in here. The term for it is a luxated or subluxated patella.

Hills has a food out now called J/D that can help a great deal with mobility problems. You should contact your vet and ask about it. It's a prescription diet which means you have to buy it at the vets.

I hope that she does well on one of these.