How to know if joint supplements are working for your dog

Knowing whether a supplement is working is often the hardest part — the changes are gradual and easy to miss when you see your dog every day. What are you observing that's making you uncertain, and what were you hoping to see?

Six weeks is the right time to be asking this question — it's the minimum window for green-lipped mussel to reach therapeutic levels. The most reliable way to assess it is the morning warm-up timer: how long from getting up to moving normally? If you weren't tracking it precisely at the start, it's worth starting now and checking again in two weeks. The other signal is stair confidence — Spaniels at this stage often start avoiding or hesitating on stairs before anything else. If she's doing both of those things about as badly as before, it's either not the right supplement or not the right dose for her degree of joint wear. If you're on the lower end of the dose range for her weight, moving to the higher end is the first adjustment.