Glucosamine For Dogs - What You Need to Know In 2022

What is Glucosamine For Dogs? What Does It Do?

Glucosamine is a natural compound found in joint cartilage. Cartilage cells use glucosamine to produce those glycosaminoglycans and keep the joint fluid healthy. Which in turn keeps the cartilage healthy.

Glucosamine also has a couple more functions. It regulates the production of collagen and proteoglycans, the two main components that make cartilage what it is. It also has some mild anti-inflammatory effects as a free radical scavenger.

What’s a free radical scavenger? To know this, you need to know what a free radical is first.

An oxygen molecule is made up of a pair of oxygen atoms. When oxygen molecules split in half, these single atoms have an extra electron in their outer shell. This “lonely” electron makes that atom behave in a very needy manner, desperately trying to find other things to bind to. These aberrant atoms are called free radicals, and their needy binding behavior causes a lot of damage to cells in the body. This is called oxidative damage or oxidative stress.

A free radical scavenger can bind and essentially deactivate these harmful free radicals. Free radical scavengers that can bind to those lonely oxygen atoms are called antioxidants.

By acting as a free radical scavenger, glucosamine for dogs can reduce inflammation and damage in the joints and throughout the rest of the body.

How Much Dog Glucosamine Should You Use?

Determining how much glucosamine and chondroitin to use can be a challenge due to a couple of barriers, but we’ll look to provide some guidelines. These barriers stem from three main areas.

The first is that glucosamine and chondroitin aren’t drugs, they’re supplements. This means that they have never been through the same type of rigorous dosage and efficacy studies that drugs and medications are required to pass, and there are no requirements for FDA approval before release.

The second barrier is that since glucosamine and chondroitin are not considered drugs and have no FDA approval, there is a lot of variability from product to product, making comparisons and evaluating efficacy difficult for establishing treatment doses.

The third barrier is that there is very little published scientific evidence proving that glucosamine and chondroitin work for joint support. And in the same vein, there are little published data to support a specific dosage. One study from 2007 published in The Veterinary Journal did show a statistically significant improvement in dogs with arthritis, though it did take a little over two months.

That being said, veterinarians have been recommending glucosamine for dogs for many years, which means there must be something beneficial to their use. We have what we call “anecdotal” evidence, meaning that while there may not be hard statistical data, we see the results and clinical improvements in our patients, and have for a long time. I recall firsthand seeing our 12-year-old family cat’s mobility noticeably improving after a couple of weeks of adding a glucosamine supplement to his food.

This long amount of time of recommendation and use has led to some established guidelines for dosing.

The general dosing recommendation is to start at 15-30 milligrams per kilogram per day. For an average 10lb cat, this equates to about 150 to 300mg. For a 30lb dog, this is about 200-400mg and for an 80lb dog, about 550 to 1000mg.

Anecdotal reports have also suggested starting with a higher dose initially where you essentially double the above doses. After about 4-6 weeks, if a positive response is seen, the dose can be decreased in half (to the doses provided above) or given every other day.

Fortunately, glucosamine and chondroitin have a very large safety threshold, so some tweaking at the advisement of your veterinarian to see what works best can be considered. For example, doubling the dosage during times of recovery from an injury for several weeks may be appropriate.

As with anything pertaining to your dogs health, please consult your veterinarian before doing anything else!