The first thing I noticed was the napping. Honey would get up off her spot on the couch, take two steps, and stop, as if she needed to remember how her back legs were supposed to work together. She was nine then. By January of this year she was ten, seventy pounds, and taking the three back porch steps one at a time, front paws first, then a pause, then the back.
Our vet looked at her in early June and said early arthritis in both hips, mild in the left elbow. No surgery. No prescription pain medication. She wanted Cosequin and a fish oil, started the same week. That is how a bottle of Nordic Naturals Omega-3 Pet ended up in the door of my refrigerator, next to the mustard, and why I have now poured it over Honey's dinner roughly one hundred and fifty times. Not because it cured anything. Because it earned its spot.
The bottle that earned a permanent spot in my refrigerator door
Unflavored liquid fish oil with EPA and DHA, poured over dinner kibble in about four seconds. This is the one our vet read the label on and told me to keep going.
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The bottle states 1,380 mg of fish oil and it names EPA and DHA on the label, which are the two omega-3 fatty acids our vet meant when she said the words fish oil in that exam room. That mattered to me more than I expected it to. I am a person who reads a label and then reads it again, and if I am going to add something to Honey's dinner every night for the rest of her life, I want to know what is in the pour and not just that the bottle has a nice picture on the front.
A liquid goes over kibble faster than you can hide a pill
The Cosequin is a chewable tablet and Honey takes it without complaint, but I spent thirty-two years around children and I know a negotiation when I see one. A liquid is not a negotiation. I measure it, pour it over her dinner kibble, stir it once with the same fork I use for her chicken, and set the bowl down. Four seconds, start to finish. No peanut butter, no pill pocket, no standing over her in my robe asking her to please just swallow.
Unflavored means no standoff at the bowl
The label says unflavored and I was braced for the nose. Any dog owner knows the walk-away, where they sniff the bowl, look at you as though you have personally betrayed them, and leave. Honey did the opposite. She put her nose down, gave me one long look as if to ask whether this was allowed, and cleaned the bowl. Five months later she still does. I have never once had to coax her through a dinner because of this bottle.
The label lists what is not in it, and I checked every line
Ingredients are the part of a label that a company hopes you will skip right past. This one states non-GMO, gluten free, dairy free, and no artificial colors, flavors or preservatives. I am not a chemist and I am not going to stand here in my kitchen and tell you a clean label is the same thing as proof of anything. But it is a thing I can verify at my own table with my own reading glasses, and that beats a label that says nothing at all.
The oil is in the form fish naturally carries it
The listing says triglyceride molecular form, which it describes as the form naturally found in fish. I had to ask our vet what that meant and she explained it in about thirty seconds, in a way I will not attempt to improve on here. The short version from me is that it is the form a body is already used to seeing. That is the level of detail I can honestly vouch for. It is also enough for me to keep buying the same bottle.
One bottle, one shelf, one habit I never have to think about
The bottle is eight ounces and after opening it lives in the refrigerator door. That is the entire storage system, and I am fond of it. It does not share the kitchen cabinet shelf with the chews and the tablets because it does not belong there. It is not in a pill organizer and it is not in a drawer where I would forget it. It is one object in one place, and after five months my hand finds it without my eyes getting involved.
It is the fish oil our vet agreed to, not one I invented
When our vet said Cosequin plus a fish oil, she left the brand to me, which I have learned over the years is simply her way. I brought her the Nordic Naturals label at the next visit. She read it, asked me how much I was giving, and said it was fine to keep going. That sentence is worth more to me than any star rating on any page. It is also why I am careful here: she approved the product. She set the amount, and I follow the label for Honey's weight.
The first change I could actually see was in her coat
Somewhere in late summer I realized her coat had gone soft in a way it had not been since she was young. I cannot prove the fish oil did that. I am not going to sit at this table and tell you it did, because the Cosequin started the same week and the turmeric came in September and I am one woman with one dog and no control group. But the coat is real, it is the plainest thing I can point to, and I am not going to pretend I did not notice it.
It gave me a real answer when the vet asked what she is on
At the last checkup our vet asked what Honey was taking and instead of a vague wave of the hand I gave her four things in order and what each one was for. The fish oil was the easiest to describe because the label is easy to read out loud. If you have ever sat in an exam room trying to remember the name of a bottle you finished and threw away in March, you know exactly why that is worth something.
Five months in, it is the easiest line in the whole routine
Breakfast is the Cosequin. The afternoon walk ends with one Zesty Paws bite standing in for her ordinary biscuit. Dinner is the pour of Nordic Naturals over her kibble and one turmeric chew beside it. Honey is better than she was in June, not cured. On cold mornings she still waits for my hand under her hips to get up into the back seat of the car. But the easiest four seconds of my whole day are at that dinner bowl, and at sixty-seven, doing this alone, that counts.
What I'd Skip
If you are standing in the supplement aisle with a stiff old dog and a worried look, here is what I would skip. I would skip powders that ask you to guess at a scoop, because I have guessed wrong at things before and a dog cannot tell you the scoop was off. I would skip any label that hints at a cure, because there is no cure for arthritis and a company that says otherwise is telling you something about itself. I would skip starting four new things in one week, which is exactly what I did, because then you cannot tell what is helping and what is simply along for the ride. And I would skip the big bottle of anything until your dog has tried it, because Honey is a good eater and yours may not be. Start with the label for your dog's weight, and call your own vet before you add anything at all. That is not a slogan I picked up somewhere. It is what I wish someone had said to me back in February.
The easiest four seconds of my whole day are at that dinner bowl, and at sixty-seven, doing this alone, that counts.
Ten reasons, one bottle, and a dog who gets up easier than she did in June
It is unflavored liquid fish oil with EPA and DHA, and it goes over kibble in four seconds. Read the label, take it to your vet, and let her tell you what fits your dog.
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