The Fish Oil Capsule I Tucked Into Murphy's Breakfast

The first thing I noticed was not a limp. It was a pause. Murphy would stand at the top of the two concrete steps at my back door, look down at the yard, and take a breath before he committed. He is a ten year old golden retriever mix, seventy one pounds, home with me since the spring of 2016. In January my vet, Dr. Sandoval, found arthritis in both hips. I am not a veterinarian. I taught high school physical education and health for thirty one years, so I know what a joint is supposed to do, and I know when one is not doing it.

So I did what I have always done with a problem. I read labels. I stood in the supplement aisle with my reading glasses on and turned bottles around, then came home and read some more. What I found was a shelf full of promises and very little plain information. Fish oil is one of those things everyone mentions and nobody explains. I tried a pump bottle of salmon oil in February, made a mess of my kitchen counter, and quit it inside three weeks.

In March I bought Nordic Naturals Omega-3 fish oil for dogs, the soft gels, on Amazon, with my own money. Nobody sent it to me and I have no arrangement with the company. I have been using it for eight months. It is unflavored, it comes as a soft gel, and the bottle holds 120 of them. Murphy will not take one on its own. He will eat anything I hand him at breakfast, so that is where it goes, tucked into his kibble with the coffee still brewing. Dr. Sandoval okayed it before I started, the same as she did the others.

Here is what I can tell you honestly, eight months in. By May his coat was softer under my hand, and that is the one change I would swear to. I never saw him rise from his bed easier because of a capsule. I am not going to pretend I did. The thing that genuinely changed his mornings was traction on the tile in my hall, and that came before the Nordic Naturals soft gels joined the routine. He is on three supplements and a pair of socks, and I cannot separate out what did what.

That is the whole reason I am writing this down. Not to sell you a bottle. To tell you what one fish oil capsule did and did not do in one house, on one dog, over one spring and summer.

I never saw him rise from his bed easier because of a capsule. I am not going to pretend I did.

The label is where I would start if you handed me a bottle across my kitchen counter. Nordic Naturals puts fish oil with EPA and DHA into these soft gels, and the oil is in the triglyceride molecular form, which the company says is the form found naturally in fish. They are non-GMO, gluten free and dairy free, with no artificial colors, flavors or preservatives. I am not a chemist and I am not going to pretend to be one. What I can tell you is that a short ingredient list is easier to check than a long one, and this one is short enough that I could read it without turning the bottle twice.

The soft gel form mattered more than I expected. That pump bottle of salmon oil in February needed measuring, it dripped, and it left a smell in my kitchen that took two days to leave the air. A capsule I can put in his bowl with a dry hand and be done before the coffee finishes. Murphy is not fussy about food, but he is fussy about being handled while he eats, so the less fuss the better. The Nordic Naturals bottle lives in the cabinet by the coffee maker, which is where I keep the things I must not forget.

For the record, fish oil is not the only thing in this house. Cosequin is the morning chew and has been since January. Zesty Paws mussel bites come around noon, after his walk and his rest, because green lipped mussel is a different ingredient and I liked that it was not a second version of the same thing. The socks go on from breakfast to bedtime to stop the slipping on the tile. The sling hangs on a hook by the back door and takes his rear end up the two steps and into the RAV4 on vet days. Five things, bought across five months, all still in use today.

I checked with Dr. Sandoval before adding each one, and I give exactly what each label says for a dog his weight. I want to be plain about the rest. Nothing on my shelf treats, cures or reverses arthritis. Murphy is ten. His hips are what they are. What I am doing is managing a household around them, and I am telling you what I saw so you can weigh it against what you see in your own dog.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

I would tell you not to buy a fish oil capsule expecting it to be the thing that fixes the steps. Buy it because it is a reasonable thing to add, because it is easy to give every single morning, and because the label tells you what is inside without making you guess. Then get the rest of the house right. The traction under his feet. The sling for the two steps and the truck. The shorter walks at the park, which are shorter than they used to be and that is fine. And the vet who actually knows your dog, because a retired teacher with a laptop is not that. Ask your vet first, always, and not a stranger on the internet, including me. Then write the date on the bottle in marker. In six months you will not remember when you started, and you will want to know.