@seniordogdoc: So many of you keep asking about the ramp we built for Becca, so here it is. The reason we built it is the part I actually want to talk about. Becca stopped getting up on things. The couch, the bed, the back step. And for a while we read it the way most people read it, which is that she was old and tired and had stopped caring about being up there with us. That was not it. She still wanted to be up there. She had just done the sums about the landing and decided against it, over and over, until not trying became the normal thing. This gets missed constantly with senior dogs. A dog in pain very rarely limps into the room and announces it. What she does is stop doing the thing that hurts, and she does it so gradually that it looks like a change in personality. She is mellowing. She is slowing down. She is finally calm in her old age. Is she, though? Half the time what you are watching is a dog editing her own life down to the parts that do not hurt. And the editing makes it worse, which is the cruel bit. Less jumping means less muscle. Less muscle means the joints carry more load. More load means more pain, so she edits further. A ramp does not fix arthritis. It keeps her using the leg, and it puts one thing back on the list of things she still does, and both of those matter more than they sound like they should. Ours was plywood, carpet offcuts and about an hour on a Saturday. It was ugly. She used it every single day for years. Look at what your dog has stopped doing this year and pick one of those things to make easier for her. Just one ❤️ Follow for the small changes that give an old dog back some of her house.

Seniordogdoc

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Wednesday 02 September 2026 13:10:27 GMT