Any tips on how to care for my senior dog whose back legs have started going out on her at random times? Right now she is 95% fine, but every once in a while her back legs just go out and she needs to rest on the floor for a bit before she can get up. I have taken her to the vet, she has some joint chews. At this point they haven’t recommended shots or anything like that. Wondering if anyone here can give me recommendations to make life easier for her, as I know this is going to just get worse. We have hardwood floors and I am thinking I will buy more rugs since she seems to collapse on the wood floors more than the carpet. She’s such a sweet girl, I’d do anything to keep her healthy and happy. 
Glucosamine has been used in dogs for hip problems. Seems to work pretty well. I’ve seen people buy bottles of it for their dogs. My son gets it from his vet because the formulation is made for dogs and more palatable.
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My daughters dog takes this: https://www.samsclub.com/p/cosequin-maximum-strength-plus-msm-chewable-tablets-180-count/prod22271163?xid=plp_product_2
My vet recommended Myristin supplements.
And yes, for putting rugs down and making sure the hair between the pads of the paws is kept really short.
Definitely use rugs. My 10 year old lab’s hips aren’t great because as a puppy we taught him to sit/stay on hardwood floors and his legs would start to slide. Vet thinks because of that they didn’t quite develop correctly as he grew. With puppy #2 we always made sure to train sits on rugs or outside surfaces and his hips are great so far at 7 years old.
I buy Nutramax Dasuquin Joint Health Supplement chewable from Amazon for my older dog and they have helped a lot.
There are some really good pain medications that your vet can prescribe for your dog and that she can safely take every day. It can make a huge difference. Also, you can buy dog boots that have rubber sole traction to help her on the wood floors.
I had adopted a rescue who was much younger than your dog, but she had hip issues and would occasionally collapse and I’d have to carry her (and she was about 60-some pounds at the time…not a small dog!). This could be during playtime or a short walk, etc. A dog boarder recommended Blue Buffalo’s salmon & sweet potato food, and although it was not cheap, it really was a miracle. So long as I kept her on that food, she never had hip issues again. (I had tried Costco’s salmon dog food, but it wasn’t as effective as the Blue Buffalo one. Why, I don’t know, but Blue Buffalo saved me lots of money in medication and doctor’s visits so I felt it was well worth it.)
Wishing you the best for your dog.
I purchased several yoga mats to cover our floors so our aging dog could get around - he needed some traction.
Not sure how big your dog is, but if larger, one trick I’ve seen is to take an Ikea-style tote bag, cut out the sides, to make a sling you can slide under the dog and help pick up/support its hind quarters.
End result looks similar to this:
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On the therapeutic side, if there is a vet school near you, consider taking your dog there for a general diagnosis and also some ideas on what you can do.
For example, they might have an underwater treadmill that allows your dog to exercise with low impact on her legs etc. It worked wonders for my pup years ago.
This isn’t my dog, but here’s a picture of an underwater treadmill:
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Aw. She’s a lab hound mix and weirdly - not into the water. 13 years old. She’s a sweet lady. 70 lbs. She’s in very good shape except for this, and it’s just sad because she so loved to run in the woods. My kid is going to go to college in the fall and my dog is probably going to pass away and then I am really going to be a mess.
A heated dog bed. My niece has an older dog who just loves the heated dog bed. It is a regular dog bed with a heating pad the slips between two layers.
My brother had an older dog who had been hit by a car when he was about 3-4 and his back legs were hurt. He never could do stairs and luckily my brother lived a ranch. We used ramps when we could. He never sat, either UP or DOWN. He had a pillow bed in his spot. Toward the end (age 14+) he often needed help getting up off the floor and even got stuck a few times with back legs on the street, unable to get onto the sidewalk so we had to lift him up even that 3" curb.
My elderly dogs both had arthritis, which was not going to be controlled by supplements or exercise. They just kept collapsing, and it was so sad. The vet prescribed Rimadyl for our older girl(think that’s how you spell it), but I wonder if that contributed to her eventual kidney failure, though it worked. We refused that option with our younger dog, first tried shots (expensive, didn’t work too well, and we hated giving them), but Meloxicam (Galliprant) was like magic for her, targeted the problem. My sister got that after her knee replacements, as humans use it too.
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Galliprant is magic for my 15-year-old dog as well. He takes it daily along with another medication called Amantadine. I think that the supplements such as Cosequin are great, but once your dog reaches a certain point, they no longer help, and you really do have to use a vet prescribed pain med. Eventually, even these pills are not going to be enough for my old boy, and sadly, I will have to make a quality of life decision for him.
Our big boy Gus (yellow lab) had arthritis in the hips and knees - hips got him first - we heard about Noni juice, which we got and gave to him 2x a day, which helped him a lot. When the knees hit sadly it was too much. He was in pain 24/7 but had never let on. Poor buddy.
I hope you find some relief for your dog.
OMG…that drug nearly killed my little girl. It is clearly not meant for certain breeds, and we were lucky that a senior vet caught the issue in time. I would be SUPER-CAREFUL about this drug and ask multiple questions and do your own research too.
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Yes. We just trusted the vet, and it worked well for her for years. I guess if I had to choose a couple more months of life for her or being incapacitated, I’d still have her take the drug. However, Galliprant worked even better for our other dog, with no ill effects.
I would definitely stay away from Rimadyl.
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I took our 79 lb goldendoodle to the vet for a routine checkup and to ask about arthritis recommendations. She got weighed and examined (not very good about this during covid because of the layout of the office) and was 14 lbs overweight. We measure her food exactly now and in two months she has lost 5 lbs and is much better.
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The IKEA bag idea is the new “How to get get your dog on the NYC Subway” hack.
Check Out This Well-Behaved Pupper Wearing a Large Ikea Bag in the NYC Subway | Viewing NYC
Rugs, we got carpet liners for our stairs going upstairs that are wood until he couldn’t do it anymore. We got a leash harness that went under him to assits with walking. He didn’t like it but it helped
Thanks for all of these responses. Will look into the supplements/drugs and definitely will get more rugs. The heated dog bed is a great idea, too.
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