Riley...

Has been acting different the last couple of days. We were watching tv last night, and he was standing here at the sofa, begging for snacks as usual, and then he collapsed to the floor. He got right back up, but then as I was making breakfast, he was standing under the kitchen table, and his face was twitching. Weird. I tried to call him up to the sofa to rest with me, but he only wanted to stay a few minutes before going back to the floor again. So, we are going to take him into the vet, and see what they can do for him. He is smiley, and isn't wincing, so I don't know what to do. But, if it is arthritis, maybe we can just give him some medication to help with the inflammation. He has been getting stiff over the last 6 months or so, and he has had his regular check ups, so it will be interesting to see what they say. He turns 12 this month, so it is so hard to say what may be going on with this guy.

Edited to add that Riley did okay at the vet. She is pretty sure that he has arthritis, but she can't say for sure. We are starting him on Rimadyl, and he will take that, either one or two a day, and she gave us enough for 2-3 weeks time. At that time, we go back in, she does bloodwork to be sure that those meds aren't hurting his liver and kidneys, and then we will do his films. He is pretty inflamed she felt, and he has lost some muscle tone in his hips. She is pretty confident it is all in his hips, and we will just do some medicine trials to see how well he does. She thinks this happened not all too long ago, so that made me feel better as a dog parent that I hadn't been neglectful to him. We also started him on some higher dosed joint supplements. Those will take about a month to see if they are helping, and the pain meds should start to make a difference in the next 2 days.

We shall see. He is pretty happy to be home. I am too. :)