If you’ve got a pet sooner or later you start thinking about that pets old age, particularly their joints. I’ve noticed this question popping up a lot lately with dogs, cats and ferrets so let’s get started
Mobility problems can start when the animal is young. I’m focusing on more than joints here because they’re just a little bit of the body and are usually stressed by other problems such as poor posture. Poor posture is a big problem in lots of pets. You might think how a pet can have bad posture but try walking around in shoes too small and you might start to get it. Yep this is about feet, nails specifically. On natural surfaces long nails sink into the dirt but in the home they don’t. Eventually these long nails push the toes and feet into an awkward position putting pressure on the joints in the feet, and in a lot of cases legs, hips and back. How to stop it? Trim nails regularly!
There are other ways to cause bad posture of course. In adequate cage space is a big one but more specific to ferrets, did you know you can get a wheel or hamster ball for your ferret? These are not suitable for a ferret, the way a ferret back is held during running is completely different from a hamster and force the ferret to lie flat and crawl on the wheel or just kind of stumble around in a ball. You can get wheels for cats that are 4ft in diameter, these ones are ok for ferrets, but I’d be worried about their ferrety nature leading to trapped paws and tails in the mechanisms.
Small litter trays can also be a problem. As well as causing litter box issues they can lead to holding themselves wrong every time they use a tray, leading to a repetitive strain injury.
The next problem that comes to mind is repetitive strain injury. This can also be caused by bad posture but I’m thinking more chasing a ball with a dog or slipping on a laminate floor. With ferrets a good slide is lots of fun, until they hurt themselves. So if you notice your pet slides at a particular point in your home consider putting a mat or rug down. In our home the pets tend to slide by the front door before going up the stairs and when jumping on my bed so we have a carpet cutting over the entrance way by the stairs and a rug in my room the length of my bed. There’s also a box by my bed that our 13 year old sometimes uses as a step to get up when she’s not feeling up to it (it’s a high bed).
Our first ferret Dylan was disabled and had a lot of mobility problems. You might not believe it but one of the best things for him was to be able to come and go as he pleased over a flatter cage lay out. At the time we had two very large cages attached to an aviary by a long slightly sloped tube. Food was put out in both hutches and water in the aviary and both hutches so he was ok no matter where he was if he didn’t want to move. This allowed him to stretch out fully and move in a way that was comfortable for him or stay put if that was what he wanted.
Exercise is really important to mobility (can you tell one of my proffs at Uni was head of the sports sciences department yet?). Gentle exercise for injuries but more strenuous stuff when younger can help prevent these injuries and protect the joints by building up more cartilage. Running and walking can be great for strengthening cartilage as the body naturally tries to protect the bones from the load bearing exercise. This only works if your pets on a good diet though (more on that later) and exercising the muscles can help them to heal after an injury or prevent an injury by holding the joint and bones stronger into alignment. This is something I personally am really struggling with right now as my illnesses prevent me getting much exercise and it’s causing my hypermobility to act up all the time. Snap, snap, snap, bones out of place lol.
Exercise is also important for keeping weight down. Excess weight also puts a lot of pressure on joints. It’s really rare to see a ferret over weight (they generally manage it quite well turning to butter balls in the winter being a healthy norm for them) but in cats and dogs it’s as much of an epidemic as it is with humans. If your pets a bit over weight helping them loose it can reduce joint risks but also heart, respiratory disease, diabetes, risks of stroke and even cancer! Weight gain is also a symptom of other health issues like Cushing’s disease so if you try and loose that weight and can’t it might be worth the vet trip so you can flag up a potential problem ASAP.
So what can we do once we’re actually there? Gentle exercise look at the cage and don’t remove challenges but consider putting in a ramp between those levels for when he’s not up to it. Let him choose to play when he wants and when to stop. Consider more swimming fun which supports the body and is easier on the joints.
What about supplements? You can get herbal supplements such as YuMove but I always prefer the synergetic root. For carnivores like our cats, dogs and ferrets this means… chicken feet. Actually, just any joints they can eat but you can buy bags of chicken, duck and game feet from raw food suppliers fairly cheap. You can give these as a treat once in a while and they have everything in them for making new cartilage. The other thing that you need for good joints is omegas. Luckily, we have a major source of these in fish oil, a primary ingredient in most ferret oil mixes. So a few drops of oil on their food and a jointy meal once every few days and we’re good to go on our gentle walks to keep everything moving.
This next bit isn’t applicable to ferrets but dogs and large breed cats (Maine coons, ragdolls etc). There have been studies that show a correlation between neutering before fully grown and joint issues. Particularly dogs hips and elbows (long bones where the growth plates were still open), the large breed cats it seems to be more related to high weight impact fractures (neutered too young the bones don’t strengthen enough to take the landing force of such heavy cats jumping is my understanding. These breeds are as slow growing as long as a large breed dog so it does make some sense, especially when you realise large breeds actually grow Larger when neutered young not smaller as you’d expect). Either way it is worth waiting at least 18 months before neutering a dog, though many breeds you may have to wait until 30 months to be safe. With large breed cats it is a bit more difficult to say how long is responsible. I would never advocate letting an unneutered cat outside and some cats, males and females, will spray if left unaltered, a behaviour no-one wants to see. Be responsible firstly and do what’s best for your cat.
P.S. this is specifically a large breed thing in cats, it doesn’t affect moggies or even medium and smaller breeds (spynxs, rexs, etc) which you can safely neuter at about 6 months.
Bye for now xx