How to Start Turmeric for a Senior Dog With Amazing Turmeric

Honey turned ten this spring. Somewhere in the past year the small things got harder. She started taking the three wooden steps off my back porch one at a time. She began pausing at the back door of my sedan, sizing up the jump into the back seat before she made it. In early June our vet felt along both hips and said the word I had been avoiding: arthritis. Early, she said, both hips, and mild in the left elbow.

So I did what a retired librarian does. I made a list. Cosequin came first, on the vet's say-so, then a fish oil. In early September I added a bottle of Amazing Turmeric for Dogs from Amazing Nutritionals, a bacon-flavored chewable tablet, because our vet said turmeric was fine to try alongside everything else and I wanted to see for myself what the fuss was about. I am not a vet and I do not play one here. What follows is how I would start turmeric if I were doing it again from scratch, with the label in one hand and the vet's phone number in the other.

Step 1: Call the vet before you open the bottle

Vets are busy and phones are free. Call the office, say what you are thinking about adding, and ask whether it is fine alongside whatever else your dog already takes. That is what I did in September and it took one phone call. Our vet asked two questions, how much Honey weighs and what was already in her bowl, and then said turmeric was fine to try. She also said the thing she has said to me before: bring Honey in if anything changes for the worse, because a supplement is not a diagnosis.

When I say ask first, I mean it more than I did in February. Back in February I bought a budget glucosamine chew before I had talked to anybody, because I was in a hurry to do something and it was right there. Four months later our vet was the one who told me what was actually going on with Honey's hips. I spent those months guessing, which is not the same as helping.

One more thing from that phone call. If your dog is on a prescription medication, or has a condition with a name attached to it, this is not a decision to make from a product page. That is true of turmeric and it is true of everything on my kitchen shelf. Nobody selling you a bottle knows your dog. Your vet, or at least the office that has seen your dog, does.

Step 2: Read the label the way you would read a contract

The bottle is small, about 4.16 ounces and 5 by 3 by 3 inches, and there are 120 chewable tablets inside. Turmeric curcumin is the active ingredient. The label says gluten free, peanut free and soy free, with no wheat and no corn, made in America, and it calls the tablets hypoallergenic. That last part matters more to me than it used to, because Honey had a itchy patch two summers ago and I have been careful about what goes in her bowl ever since.

Here is what I check on any label, and I checked all of it on this one. The amount per tablet, because that tells you how many tablets a day a 70-pound dog would take. The flavor, because a tablet a dog will not eat is a tablet you have wasted. And whether the maker says where it is made. Amazing Nutritionals puts that on the label, and I appreciate it more than I would have ten years ago.

What the label does not say, and what no label says, is that this will fix your dog. The listing language on the product page is bold, promising that it eliminates joint pain and inflammation. I am not going to repeat that as though it were settled, because I have been giving these to Honey for two months and I cannot tell you they have done that for her. What I can tell you is what is in the bottle, what our vet said about trying it, and what I have watched since September.

Step 3: Give the first one with a meal, not on an empty stomach

Give the first tablet with food. For Honey that is dinner, somewhere around five o'clock, worked into her kibble along with the pump of fish oil she has been getting since June. The tablet is small and bacon-flavored and she takes it without ceremony. If your dog is a picky one, a sliver of plain cooked chicken on top does the trick. Honey gets a small spoon of chicken when I cook anyway, so she was never going to be hard to persuade.

Follow the label for your dog's weight. I am not going to hand you a number of milligrams, because I am not a vet and because the label already did that arithmetic for you. Our vet agreed with what the label said for a 70-pound dog, and that is as much as I will say about it. If your dog is smaller, or young, or older than Honey and on other medication, the label and the vet are your two sources, in that order.

The first week, watch. Watch the bowl, watch the stomach, watch the yard. Nothing dramatic happened with Honey and nothing dramatic is what you want. She ate it, she was fine, we kept going. If your dog turns her nose up at it, or has a loose day or two, stop and call the office. Turmeric is not a thing you push a dog through. You offer it and you let the dog tell you.

The label is the only thing on that shelf written by someone who knows what is in the bottle. Everything else is a review, mine included.

Step 4: Change one thing at a time, and write it down

This is the step I got wrong, so I will say it plainly. When I started turmeric in September, Honey was already on Cosequin since mid-June and fish oil since the same week, plus a mussel chew since early August. I added a fourth thing to a routine that was working. Which means if something changes for the better, I will not know which one to credit. I knew better and I did it anyway.

So keep a notebook. I have one, a small spiral one that lives on the kitchen counter next to the cabinet where the bottles sit. I write the date, what I gave, and one line about the day. Stiff getting up, or not so stiff. Porch steps one at a time, or two. Waited for a boost into the car, or did not. It takes twenty seconds and it beats trying to remember how last Tuesday went, which at my age is a losing argument.

One change at a time is the rule. If you are starting fresh, start turmeric alone, give it several weeks, and then add the next thing. If you are like me and you already have a shelf going, at least write down the day you added it, so that in two months you are not doing what I am doing, which is shrugging.

Step 5: Give it the whole bottle before you make up your mind

Here is my honest report card. Two months in, I have seen no change in Honey that I can pin on turmeric. She is better than she was in June, clearly better, taking the porch steps more smoothly and getting up from a nap without that long pause. I credit Cosequin and the fish oil for that, because those came first and the change showed up around six weeks after we started. The Amazing Nutritionals tablets came later and have not added anything I can point to yet.

I am keeping it going to the bottom of the bottle anyway, and here is why. Two months is not a long time. Our vet okayed it. The tablet goes down with dinner and nothing about her routine has suffered. There is no downside I have seen, and there is nothing to be gained by deciding on a Wednesday in October when the bottle will not be empty until later.

What I will not do is tell you it cured her. It has not, or at least I cannot show it has. If you are the kind of person who needs a product to prove itself in six weeks, buy the smallest size you can find, or skip it. If you can live with an honest maybe and a notebook, this is a reasonable thing to try with your vet's blessing.

What Else Helps

Turmeric is not a substitute for the boring things, and the boring things are most of it. Honey gets two walks a day, about twenty minutes each, morning and late afternoon, and our vet told me that shorter and more often beats one long hike. Her weight matters too. She runs about seventy pounds and our vet wants her to stay there, because every extra pound is a pound those hips carry up the porch steps.

At home I put a couple of runner rugs down on the hardwood in the hall, because Honey was slipping a little on the turns. Her spot on the couch has a folded quilt on it and I moved it nearer the door so she is not crossing the whole living room to lie down. When she hesitates at the car, I put a hand under her hips and boost. Our vet showed me how to do that without lifting her whole back end. On cold mornings she still waits for it, and that is fine.

And the recheck. Our vet wants to see her again in the new year, and she asked me to bring the notebook so we have something to look at besides my memory. That is a large part of why I write the twenty-second line every evening. A notebook is not glamorous, but it is the difference between knowing and assuming.

Where I Have Landed

If you had asked me in September whether I would still be giving Honey turmeric in November, I would have said I would see. Here in early November the answer is yes, to the end of this bottle, and I will decide then. That is not a ringing endorsement and I am not going to dress it up as one. It is an honest place to land after two months, and I think more reviews should end up there.

What I can tell you is that starting it was easy. One tablet with dinner, per the label for her weight, our vet's okay on a single phone call, one line in the notebook. No wrestling, no gravy, no drama. With a ten-year-old dog who has arthritis in both hips, easy counts for something. If you want the longer account of the two months, I have laid it all out in a full review of Amazing Turmeric for Dogs, and if you are weighing it against a homemade golden paste, I have written that comparison too.