I'm so sorry to hear that your dog is having problems with his / her joints. I don't have experience with that particular problem, but the Displaced Dog was on
SAMe for a few years to help improve his liver function. SAMe is also used a lot for mild depression and for osteoarthritis in humans. My vet said that after a year on the supplement, liver function was improved dramatically, though I don't know if the depression and osteoarthritis improvement would also be there. The Displaced Dog did have trouble getting up in his last few months, but I think that was more due to his exhaustion from congestive heart failure than problems with his joints. He never had problems with depression. They make dog versions of SAMe, but my vet said that they're essentially a more expensive version of the kind sold at Whole Foods or Walgreens for people, so I just picked it up at one of those two places and followed the dosing instructions on one of the pet SAMe websites.
Anyhow, I think that rimadyl has some adverse liver and kidney effects, so you might want to ask your vet if a supplement of SAMe in addition to rimadyl would be a good idea. Rimadyl was especially made for dogs, so I imagine there's a lot of data on its long-term effectiveness.
Good luck! I did everything I could last year on making sure that the Displaced Dog was as comfortable as possible in his twilight, and I'd do it again in a heartbeat. He gave me nearly 16 years, and it was the least I could do to make sure that I was as good to him as he was to me. He died in August, and I still miss him a lot.
BTW, I got a note last Monday from the Puppy's breeder that a surprise litter was born on December 27th. We'd thought that it wouldn't be until late spring that we'd get a new puppy, but it looks like we'll be picking up our baby girl on Valentine's day. She's 8 days old today, and the breeder sent me pictures of four itty bitty balls of fluff this afternoon. Mine, I think, was the tiniest of the balls. The Puppy isn't going to like losing her only dog status at first, but I think she misses having someone else to boss around. The cat just doesn't work for her.
