Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsExpensive but effective
Reviewed in the United States on April 11, 2017
This is Bella. She's a beautiful 5-year-old pitbull with very bad hips, she was a rescue so it was most likely due to bad breeding. However, this problem is so bad that if we go on a walk or play fetch, she can't move for the rest of the day. She's pretty much an indoor lounge dog because of this, which is fine, but even with no exercise her hips are often stiff and in pain. She takes 50g of Carprofen, also known as Rimadyl, every day but it's pretty expensive and she needed a little something in addition to that.
For the first 4-6 weeks of using this product, you are supposed to double the dose on the bottle as a "loading phase" to build up their natural levels and get better results. Then you go down to the instructed "maintenance level" amount (pictured), which can be long term. Bella is almost 60 lbs, so her "maintenance" is 2 teaspoons AM and 2 teaspoons PM = 4 teaspoons a day. Doubled for "loading" is 8 teaspoons a day. There are 32 oz in the bottle = 192 teaspoons total. As a "maintenance" bottle, this would last us 48 days. As a "loading" it lasted about 24 days, or about 3 weeks. The issue with this, is that the bottle is $40 and didn't even last through the initial "loading" phase. I suppose once you are in the "maintenance" period it's a better price, ($40 for 48 days) but still there seem to be better prices out there.
Pros: This product made a noticeable difference, and it did so pretty quickly. She doesn't do her stiff waddle anymore, or cry when she gets up in the middle of the night. We haven't yet exercised her to see how that would go because she's still getting used to it, but for every day wandering around, she is doing well. Also, she had no problem with the flavor. If she ever wasn't in the mood for it straight, I mixed it with a little bit of pumpkin puree (no added sugar or anything) or just poured it over her food.
Cons: Price. I will obviously do whatever it takes to make Bella comfortable and happy, but I'm a college student, so if there's something out there that will work just as well for half the price I'm going to do that instead.
Price is super important, but so is the quality of your dog's life. It all just comes down to weighing cost vs benefit. I think that this would be perfect for smaller dogs, but it's just very very expensive for bigger dogs. My plan is to try out a few different kinds and see what else works, but at least I know that this brand shows positive results, so I can always come back to it if I find that nothing else worked as well as the TerraMax.
I hope this wasn't too confusing. I've been doing a lot of research to find the best product for Bella and I'm assuming if you're still reading at this point you are just trying to figure out what's best for your own pup. I hope I helped in some way!
