New medicine helping furry friends live longer

NEW YORK — Zuke was in pain. Six years of hiking, biking and jogging had taken its toll . . ." Although it may sound like the warm-up promotion for a television melodrama, this is the sales copy on a 6.25-ounce bag of dog treats. Zuke's Hip Action, a beef-flavored dog goody shot through with the supplement glucosamine, is intended to soothe the aching joints of older dogs.

Meanwhile, in New York City, Michael Foye is one of a small but growing number of neighborhood Florence Nightingales attending to aging cats with special needs. Foye drops into cat owners' homes to give injections to felines suffering from the dehydration associated with kidney failure, a fatal disease in older cats.

"They don't like it," said Foye, a professional dog walker, who learned how to deliver the shots just under the fur between the shoulder blades from another dog walker. "Sometimes the cats run the moment they see you. It's not the high point of their day."

They say there's no mistaking the moment when a pet looks at you with weary eyes that say, "Enough." But what about the look one, two or three years before that, when a dog or cat is starting to creak, sprout snowy stubble around the muzzle and just plain get old? Those years of companionship and compassion can be costly and confusing.

Like the American population, the American animal-companion population is graying. This has led to an explosion in services, therapies, surgical procedures and products geared to cosseting, even prolonging, the golden years of the average golden retriever.

"Pets are less disposable than they were a generation ago," said Jim Humphries, a veterinarian in Colorado Springs, who regularly gives pet advice on CBS' "Early Show." "In the '70s, it was not uncommon that a pet without bladder control was put to sleep. Now, society says: 'Let's deal with it with doggy diapers.' Baby boomers are taking care of their parents, and they're accepting responsibility for their aging pets, too."

Expensive medical treatments that five years ago would have been reserved almost exclusively for the human species — CT scans, ultrasound, MRIs and radiation therapy — are now all performed on pets. Pharmaceutical giants like Pfizer and Bayer are marketing an ever wider selection of drugs for geriatric cats and dogs, like Rimadyl for arthritis and Anipryl for a newly recognized condition, cognitive dysfunction syndrome, or canine senility. Pet-shop bulletin boards bristle with advertisements offering massages and acupuncture.