Pet Gently Homepage ad: Meg, the stile and our 90-day diary

Day 52, Meg went over the stile alone. In July this 13-year-old sheepdog couldn't. Here's every day in between 🐾 I'm writing this down partly for me, and partly because when I went looking for help I couldn't find anyone who'd just tell me plainly what happened to their dog, day by day. So here's ours. First, the stile. There's a wooden stile at the top of our lane that leads onto the fell. Meg has gone over it twice a day, every day, for twelve years. As a young dog she didn't even touch it. She'd take it in one flying leap and be halfway up the hill before I'd got my leg over. One morning in July, she stopped in front of it. She put her front paws up on the step. Looked at the top bar. Then she took her paws down and sat in the grass and looked at me. I waited. She tried again. Same thing. So I lifted her over. Seventeen kilos of collie, against my chest, with her legs dangling and her ears flat because she hated every second of it. Working dogs have a lot of pride. On the other side, she walked about twenty yards up the path and lay down. I've worked sheepdogs for thirty years. My husband's family have farmed this valley since the 1800s. I know what an old dog looks like when it's finished working. I just wasn't ready for Meg to be that dog. Because on a farm, you know where that road goes. I've seen it with other dogs over the years. First they stop coming out to the sheep. Then they stop coming out of the house. Then one winter morning they can't get up off the straw at all, and somebody has to ring the vet, and it isn't for a check-up. My father-in-law's old dog, Cap, went that way when I was first married. I can still see Ray's dad carrying him out to the Land Rover wrapped in a coat. He didn't say a word all day. I kept thinking about Cap that night. About how many winters Meg had left, if she couldn't even manage the stile in July. And I kept thinking that a dog who's been your shadow on the hill for twelve years deserves better than to spend her last ones lying by the Aga watching the door. That night I sat at the kitchen table and wrote in the back of the farm diary: "Meg couldn't do the stile." That's where this diary starts. Before I tell you what we did, let me tell you what we'd already tried, because I think it matters. We'd had the vet out to her the winter before, when she started to look stiff in the cold. Lovely young vet, very thorough. She talked us through options for an older dog and was honest that Meg was getting on. We'd moved her bed out of the barn and into the kitchen by the Aga, which she approved of. I'd tried a cod liver oil my mother swore by. Meg licked it off the floor, the bowl, and my boots, and I couldn't say it made a scrap of difference. I'd tried a joint powder from the farm supplies place. I couldn't tell you what was in it. I'm not sure the man behind the counter could either. Nothing hurt her. Nothing helped much. The thing that changed how I thought about it came from a most unlikely place: the tea hut at Kirkby Stephen auction mart. I was sat with a cuppa next to old Tom Raine, who's farmed the next valley for fifty years and still runs dogs at trials. His bitch, Jess, is about Meg's age and still goes up the fell with him most mornings. I asked him how. He put his tea down and said, "Helen, when the bearing goes on your quad, what do you do?" I said we grease it. "And if you just keep driving it dry?" "It grinds. Gets hot. Then it seizes." "Well," he said. "Same with an old dog. You've been letting her bearings run dry." At first I thought he was being daft. But on the drive home I kept turning it over, and it's stuck with me ever since. A dog's joint is a bit like a wheel bearing. You've got smooth surfaces that have to slide over each other, the cartilage on the ends of the bones. You've got grease between them, the fluid in the joint. And you have to keep the grit out. As a dog gets older, the smooth surfaces wear thinner. The grease thins out. The joint gets irritated, the dog moves less to avoid the sore bit, and everything stiffens up faster. A dry bearing. And I realised why the cod liver oil and the farm powder had done so little. If either of them did anything, it was to one part of the bearing. You can't grease one side of a bearing and expect it to run. Tom gave his dog a chew every morning. He showed me the pouch in the Land Rover. Pet Gently Joint Care. I looked it up that night. It had thirteen ingredients, and when I read through them, they lined up with Tom's bearing. For the smooth surfaces, there's 500mg of glucosamine and 150mg of chondroitin, which support cartilage, with vitamin C and rose hips, which the body uses to make collagen. For the grease, there's hyaluronic acid, which helps maintain joint lubrication, plus green-lipped mussel and salmon oil. For the grit, there's MSM, turmeric, Boswellia, yucca, grapple plant and vitamin E, all chosen to support joint comfort. They're made in Ireland, to European quality standards, by specialist dog nutritionists, with a registered veterinary nurse consulting. No grain, no sugar, no colours, no fillers. I ordered a pouch. And I kept writing in the farm diary. Here's what it says, copied out word for word. Day 1. Gave Meg the first chew. Took it, ate it, sat for another. She's never sat for a supplement in her life. Day 4. Nothing to report. Still slow first thing. Still waiting at the stile. Day 9. Got up from her bed by the Aga in one go this morning. Usually takes her two or three tries. Might be a fluke. Day 12. Not a fluke. Two mornings running. Day 17. Walked up to the stile with me, stood with her paws on the step for a long time. Lifted her over again. Walked further up the path than last time before she lay down. Day 24. Came out to the sheep with Ray for the first time since spring. Just to watch from the quad. Sat up on the seat like the Queen. Day 31. Ray says she's "got her spark back." He doesn't say things like that. Day 38. Trotting in the yard. Not running. Trotting. Tail up. Day 45. Rain, cold. Stiff in the morning. Still got up first try. Day 52. Went up to the stile. Front paws on the step. Back paws on the step. Paused at the top bar for what felt like a minute. And went over. Not in a flying leap. More of a scramble. But she went over on her own and looked back at me from the other side like she'd been doing it all along. I stood in the lane and laughed out loud. A walker coming down the fell must have thought I'd gone mad. Day 60. Over the stile again. Twice. Day 74. Our granddaughter Ellie visiting from Manchester. Meg played fetch with her in the garden for ten minutes. Ellie asked if Meg was a different dog from last time. I told her no, same dog, she's just had her bearings greased. Day 90. Wrote "Meg did the stile" in the diary for the twentieth-odd time and decided I'd better stop counting. That's our 90 days. I want to be honest about what it isn't. Meg is a 13-year-old collie and she's not going to run a trial again. She has slow mornings when it's cold. She sleeps more than she used to. But she's out on the hill with me again. And for a dog like Meg, that's the whole of her life. Pet Gently's own guide says much the same as my diary: comfort comes first, then movement over the following months, and they say to give it three months to see the full picture. They're rated 4.6 out of 5 from over 1,500 reviews, and in their own 2026 survey of customers on regular delivery, 97% said they saw better mobility within 90 days. I can only speak for one collie, but she's in that 97%. If you've got an old dog who's started stopping at things she used to fly over, I'd say this. Keep with whatever your vet has suggested. The brand says the chews can go alongside other supplements and medication, and to ask your vet if you're unsure. Write a diary. You notice so much more when you write it down. And give it the full time. That's why I liked that they back it for 90 days: if you don't see a difference, you get your money back. Fussy eaters, packs opened, changed your mind, all covered. Your first pouch is half price on regular delivery, and you can skip or cancel whenever you want. Tap Learn more to read about how they work. Helen P.S. The stile is the best test I know. Pick the one thing your dog has stopped doing, a step, a sofa, the boot of the car, and watch it for 90 days. Tap Learn more if you'd like to start. P.P.S. Tom Raine's Jess turned 14 last month. She still goes up the fell with him. I bought him a pint.