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Dog Owners With Arthritis: Ease Your Pain With These 7 Dog-Care Tips

Having a severe case of arthritis and/or carpal tunnel as a dog owner can make owning a pet a difficult experience. This makes even the easiest care taking tasks excruciating. Even opening a can of dog food can prove to be difficult.

Relieving some of your pain and be able not to irritate your condition when taking care of your beloved dog is possible. Here’s some helpful tips that I have picked up:

1. Getting an electric can opener can help with making feeding time a more enjoyable experience. And electric can openers are very inexpensive and can be found in just about any household goods store.
 
2. If you do not want to deal with any can openers at all, then you can purchase dog food that comes in easy-to-open tin cans. They are called flip-top cans and have a small handle that you just peel up. However, they are not always as easy to open as advertised and you may need a small lever which will help twist the top.

3. Another trick to keep your arthritis pain from kicking in when you are opening up dog food is to open up the cans at a higher level. For example, just by stacking one can of dog food on top of another makes it less painful to open up that top can. This is because your arms are elevated and the discomfort associated with your medical condition is less likely to strike.

4. When using household items try using ones that are larger than normal sized in the handle. This will make gripping much easier and reduce your arthritic pain.

5. If you feed your dog dry dog food from boxes then be sure to find them with handles that are built in. Many brands offer this little feature so that you simply push in a corner of the box and a small opening will be created, thereby making gripping much easier To handle.

6. Have you ever tried a local grooming service? Well grooming your pet is definitely an easy task so utilizing a local grooming service would be well adviced. To make things even easier there are groomers that can even pick up your dog from your house, take them in for you for a bath and a brushing, and then bring them back home to you.

7. If utilizing a local grooming service is not within your budget or if no such service exists in your area, then you may want to invest into certain dog brushes that have a universal cuff or a wrist cuff. These features are specifically designed for men and women that have limited arm and hand strength when it comes to holding utensils, brushes, and other items. You simply slide your hand through the cuff and move the brush over your dog's coat.