| Karlene Wieland
The Arthritis Study Begins…
The VP of Quality Assurance has put on her very best civic attitude and started her journey to help other dogs and herself along the way. To bring you up to speed, last year she had knee (TPLO) surgery and her beginning arthritis was discovered. Apparently not only is this injury common but dogs who have it almost inevitably get arthritis and Koszi is no exception.
She is participating in this blind nutraceutical study to treat the arthritis. What that means is that when we went in on Presidents day to have a “baseline” done, they took blood tests and did an overall physical exam. Ruling out any other issues, and establishing her "normal" she was admitted to the test as Subject #50.
Her activity was "pretty normal" according to Sarah who is conducting the study. I have to laugh that you can see clearly when everybody gets home at night as the spike of activity represents our greeting and daily game of hide and seek right around 6 p.m. (Yep, the dog and her humans play hide and seek. P.S. She always wins.)
Now we are assigned to a group. One of the groups takes the nutraceutical and one takes only a treat. They are part of the control group. Nobody knows who's in what group (except for Sarah) until the end. The fitbit-like collar tracks her ongoing activity. She has a checkup every 30 days for the next three months which includes downloading the activity from the collar, completing a qualitative survey regarding my observations of her behavior and a physical exam. So far so good.
Just in case you were worried about this-the product that is being tested has gone through all of the trials in another country. In other words, the risks are very minimal. She’s just helping others!
She is participating in this blind nutraceutical study to treat the arthritis. What that means is that when we went in on Presidents day to have a “baseline” done, they took blood tests and did an overall physical exam. Ruling out any other issues, and establishing her "normal" she was admitted to the test as Subject #50.
Subject #50, Koszi to her friends, now has some fabulous jewelry that acts like a fitbit for dogs. She wore it for this first week again to establish a baseline for her activity levels.
Her activity was "pretty normal" according to Sarah who is conducting the study. I have to laugh that you can see clearly when everybody gets home at night as the spike of activity represents our greeting and daily game of hide and seek right around 6 p.m. (Yep, the dog and her humans play hide and seek. P.S. She always wins.)
Now we are assigned to a group. One of the groups takes the nutraceutical and one takes only a treat. They are part of the control group. Nobody knows who's in what group (except for Sarah) until the end. The fitbit-like collar tracks her ongoing activity. She has a checkup every 30 days for the next three months which includes downloading the activity from the collar, completing a qualitative survey regarding my observations of her behavior and a physical exam. So far so good.
Just in case you were worried about this-the product that is being tested has gone through all of the trials in another country. In other words, the risks are very minimal. She’s just helping others!