Improving joint and muscle health in aging dogs can improve their well-being and keep them more comfortable for longer so their owners can enjoy more time with them.
Speakers at Petfood Forum 2025 in Kansas City, Missouri, U.S., discussed ways to improve canine mobility by preserving joint and muscle health.
While joint health products dominate pet store shelves, experts now recognize that muscle loss represents an equally serious yet often overlooked condition affecting dogs. Shawn Baier, vice president of business development at TSI Group Co., said muscle deterioration begins surprisingly early.
“One of the biggest overlooked conditions, both in humans and canines, is muscle loss. It doesn’t start at 75; it actually starts, unfortunately, at about the age of 35 to 40” in humans, Baier said. “In our companion animals, especially in canine, we see this as young as four years of age.”
What makes this condition particularly deceptive is that many dogs maintain their overall weight despite losing muscle mass.
“What we see is a compositional change, so fat mass increases as muscle mass decreases,” Baier said. “Many times, our canine partners maintain their weight as they age, and what we see is a compositional change, so fat mass increases as muscle mass decreases.”
The first warning sign owners typically notice is decreased activity. As dogs experience muscle loss, even routine activities become more difficult, creating a downward spiral: less muscle leads to less activity, which in turn accelerates further muscle loss.
Osteoarthritis: A progressive joint challenge
Complementing the topic of muscle health, Niels Blees of the Utrecht University Faculty of Veterinary Medicine discussed osteoarthritis, a chronic disease affecting an estimated 20% to 40% of all dogs — with some estimates suggesting up to 80% of senior dogs suffer from this condition.
“The horrible thing about osteoarthritis is that as soon as it sets in, we cannot cure it, and it will always get worse,” Blees said. “While it may start with a dog not being able to play, and to jump and to run, it will slowly extend to a dog not willing to walk because it’s feeling pain, not willing to stand up because it has pain.”
At the microscopic level, osteoarthritis involves a disturbed balance between the building up and breaking down of cartilage within joints. Chondrocytes — cells responsible for maintaining healthy cartilage — essentially act as “janitors” of the joint, producing the extracellular matrix that keeps joints functioning smoothly.
In the case of osteoarthritis, the balance normally maintained between anabolism and catabolism of the joint is disturbed, Blees said. This imbalance creates a vicious cycle where cartilage fragments trigger inflammation, which causes more cartilage deterioration.
HMB and collagen hydrolysates
Blees and Baier highlighted two promising nutritional approaches to addressing these interconnected challenges: beta-hydroxy beta-methylbutyrate (HMB) for muscle preservation and collagen hydrolysate for joint health.
HMB, a metabolite of the amino acid leucine, works on both sides of the protein synthesis equation, Baier said. It stimulates the building of new muscle protein and reduces its breakdown.
Studies in multiple canine models have demonstrated HMB’s effectiveness. In a clinical trial with overweight, older dogs, researchers found that supplemented animals showed lower heart rates during activity — indicating reduced stress during exercise. This physiological improvement led to notable behavioral changes, with supplemented dogs engaging in more voluntary activity.
Perhaps most impressively, in a severe model of muscle loss using golden retrievers with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, HMB supplementation significantly increased high-exertion activity and free play behavior, suggesting real-world benefits for pet dogs.
The dosage used in these studies was approximately 30 milligrams of HMB per kilogram of body weight daily, translating to about a gram per day for medium-sized dogs.
Supporting joint structure
On the joint health front, Blees presented research on collagen hydrolysate, derived from the same protein that provides structural support to cartilage.
When hydrolyzed, collagen forms easily absorbable oligopeptides that enter the bloodstream after digestion. These components appear to decrease synovial inflammation and slow the progressive deterioration of cartilage.
Researchers confirmed excellent absorption of collagen hydrolysate in dogs, with a dose-dependent increase in blood levels of hydroxyproline, a key collagen component, after supplementation. Effects appeared strongest at doses between 250 and 500 milligrams per kilogram of body weight.
Laboratory studies using canine synovial cells and chondrocytes treated with serum from supplemented dogs showed modest but promising anti-inflammatory and potentially anti-fibrotic effects, though responses varied significantly between individual donors.
The combined approach
What makes these findings particularly significant is the complementary nature of muscle and joint health.
“There is a reason why we see an activity curve diminish in our companion animals, and that is because of an experience of muscle loss,” Baier said. “Many times, we equate it to joint health, and that’s the question with mobility. But there’s two very important variables here: It’s joint health and muscle health.”
This insight suggests that comprehensive nutritional support addressing muscle preservation and joint function may offer the most promising path forward for maintaining mobility in aging dogs.
While these nutritional interventions show promise, both researchers emphasized that further clinical validation is needed. Blees indicated that his team is currently working on a clinical study to better understand how laboratory findings translate to real-world benefits for dogs suffering from osteoarthritis.