Cosequin vs Dasuquin: Which Joint Supplement Fits a Large Senior Dog

Maple turned twelve this spring, and in February Dr. Amari put a name to what I had been watching all winter: arthritis in both hips and the left elbow. She is a yellow Labrador mix, seventy-four pounds, and she has been my only dog since she came home as a puppy in the spring of 2014. When a dog that size starts standing at the back door and thinking the trip over, you start reading labels. That is how I ended up with two supplement labels spread out on my kitchen table and one question I could not answer from the aisle: Cosequin or Dasuquin.

Here is the short answer, the one I would give you on my front porch. Cosequin is the chewable tablet I have given Maple every morning since the first week of March, and it is where I would start with most big older dogs. It is made by Nutramax Laboratories, it carries MSM in the standard formula, and it is one amount a day from the first day. Dasuquin, which is also a Nutramax Laboratories product, is the one to ask your vet about if your dog will not take a tablet, or if your vet wants avocado soybean unsaponifiables in the formula. I have never bought Dasuquin. Everything I say about it below comes from its label and from my own reading, not from my dog.

	Cosequin	Dasuquin
Form	Chewable tablet, can be broken and tucked into food	Soft chew, most dogs take it as a treat
Glucosamine and chondroitin	Glucosamine hydrochloride and sodium chondroitin sulfate, both named on the label	Glucosamine and chondroitin, also named on the label
MSM in the standard formula	Yes, MSM is listed with the glucosamine and chondroitin	Only in the version labeled with MSM, the plain one leaves it out
Ingredient beyond glucosamine and chondroitin	MSM	MSM in one version, avocado soybean unsaponifiables in the formulas that carry it
Starting period	Follow the package directions for your dog's weight	Follow the package directions for your dog's weight
For a dog that fights the bowl	Some take the tablet as a treat, others need it hidden	Soft chews are usually easier to get into a suspicious dog
Public track record to read	4.7 stars across more than eighty thousand ratings	Smaller public review base, so less to read through
Company	Nutramax Laboratories	Nutramax Laboratories
Best for	The dog that takes a tablet without a fuss	The picky dog, or the dog whose vet wants avocado soybean unsaponifiables in the formula

Where Cosequin Wins

The plain version of Cosequin lists MSM right alongside the glucosamine hydrochloride and the sodium chondroitin sulfate. With Dasuquin you have to look for the version that says with MSM, because the plain one leaves it out. That only matters because it is one less thing to get wrong at the counter. I have stood in that aisle and read the small print twice, and I still had to set a container down and start over. When I am standing in a store at sixty-five with my reading glasses pushed up on my head, I want the formula I read about at home to be the formula that ends up in my hand.

The second thing is the tablet itself. A chewable tablet can be halved and pushed into a piece of cheese, or set on top of kibble and covered with a spoon of wet food. It does not get eaten as a treat an hour before dinner and then forgotten. Maple takes hers on top of her breakfast in the kitchen and eats it without any fuss. I know that is luck as much as anything, but a tablet gives you more ways to hide it than a soft chew does, because you can break it into pieces.

The third point is the schedule. Both labels set the amount by the dog's weight, and the directions can change after the first few weeks, so read the package you actually buy instead of trusting my summary. That is not complicated, but it is one more thing to hold in your head on a damp morning when the dog is stiff and you are not at your sharpest either. Simple routines are the ones that survive. I spent thirty years as a home health nurse watching complicated routines fall apart by the second week.

The last point is not about the formula at all. Cosequin carries 4.7 stars across more than eighty thousand ratings on Amazon. That is a large enough pile of other people's mornings that I could read through the complaints and not just the praise, and I did. A smaller review base means less of that kind of reading available to you.

Where Dasuquin Wins

I am not going to pretend these are the same bottle under two names. Dasuquin adds avocado soybean unsaponifiables, ASU, in the formulas that carry it, and Cosequin's standard formula does not have it. Plenty of veterinarians reach for Dasuquin for that reason. I have not read the studies myself and I am not the woman to weigh the evidence for you. I only know that if Dr. Amari had told me she wanted ASU in Maple's diet, I would have bought Dasuquin that same afternoon and not argued with her.

The other honest point is the soft chew. Maple takes her tablet and always has, so this costs me nothing. But I have watched enough older dogs turn their heads away from a bowl to know that a soft chew is easier to get into a dog who is suspicious of anything new. A dog who will not eat the supplement gets none of it, no matter what the label promises. On that measure Dasuquin is the better choice, and it is not close.

Dasuquin also comes in more than one version, which means there is a real conversation to have with your vet about which one suits your dog. That is a strength if you have a vet you trust and a nuisance if you are shopping alone on a Saturday. I would rather have the versions available than not. The catch is that versions mean a phone call. Ringing Dr. Amari's office and asking which one she wants is a five minute conversation, and it is a better use of five minutes than standing in an aisle guessing.

What the Labels Say for a 74 Pound Dog

Both products are dosed by weight. Maple is seventy-four pounds, so I read the row for her weight and I follow it. I read that row twice, once in the store and once at home with a flashlight, because the print is small and my eyes are not what they were at forty. I am not going to print an amount here. I am not a veterinarian, the package directions are the only place that number belongs, and your dog does not weigh what Maple weighs. If your dog sits right on the line between two rows, that is a question for your vet's office and not for a stranger's article.

The practical difference is mostly the form. Both labels set the amount by weight, and either one can call for more at the start, so read the directions on the package you buy before the first morning. Then nothing surprises you three weeks in.

The gap between these two labels is smaller than the gap between a dog who gets her supplement every morning and a dog who gets it when somebody remembers.

What I Saw With Maple, Since You Asked

Maple started Cosequin the first week of March, one each morning with her breakfast in the kitchen, the amount the package gives for her weight. It was Dr. Amari's suggestion and it was the first joint supplement Maple had ever had. I did not keep notes for an article. I kept notes because that is what I did for three decades as a nurse and I cannot seem to stop doing it.

Around the middle of April, about six weeks in, I noticed she was getting up in the morning without that pause. The pause is the thing I watch. For a while there I counted it. On a bad morning she would lie there, lift her head, and think the whole business over for a good three or four seconds before pushing up onto her front legs. By the middle of April she was pushing up on her own before I had finished setting the bowl down. She still has stiff days, more when the weather is damp, and she is not cured of anything. Her hips are still her hips. What changed was modest and it was real, and modest and real is the most I expect from anything you can buy without a prescription. Anyone who tells you a chewable tablet reversed their dog's arthritis is telling you a story.

The damp mornings still find her. One morning in April her back legs splayed out on the oak hall floor and she went down in a heap. She was not hurt. She got up, shook herself, and looked at me as if I had arranged it. But it scared me enough that I went looking for something to put under her feet, and that is why the socks came in the first week of May.

What Neither One Will Do

Neither Cosequin nor Dasuquin treats or cures arthritis. They are joint health supplements, which is exactly the language on the label and no more than that. Maple's diagnosis came from Dr. Amari and your dog's should come from your own vet. If your dog is limping, reluctant to rise, or has stopped putting weight on a leg, that is a vet visit and not a shopping trip.

The supplement was also not the whole of what helped here. Maple's footing changed when the rugs and the socks came in. Her sleep changed when the bed came in. Before the ramp arrived in August, Walt and I lifted her into the Outback together for every vet visit, and seventy-four pounds of unsure dog is a great deal heavier than seventy-four pounds of willing dog. Three wooden steps at the back door had turned into a twice a day negotiation. Neither of those problems was ever going to be solved by something she eats with her breakfast. If you lined up everything I have bought for that dog this year, the supplement would sit in the middle of the list, not at the top. It is one part of a week, and an honest list of what helps a senior dog says so.

The Limits of What I Can Tell You

I have never owned Dasuquin. I have never fed it, never opened the container, never watched a dog eat one. My comparison of it comes from the label, the ingredient list, and reading what other people have written. Cosequin I know from eight months of mornings with my own dog. So weigh my opinion the way you would weigh any neighbor's: heavier on the thing she has lived with, lighter on the thing she has only read about.

Who Should Buy Which

Start with Cosequin if your dog takes a tablet without a fight, if you want one amount a day and no phase to step down from, and if you would rather not hunt for a specific version just to get MSM. That describes Maple and it describes most of the big older dogs I have known. Compare the current price of both before you buy, which matters in a year when you are also buying a bed, socks, a sling and a ramp.

Ask your vet about Dasuquin if your dog refuses tablets, if your dog spits out whatever you hide them in, or if your vet specifically wants avocado soybean unsaponifiables in the formula. Two of those three are about the dog's mouth rather than the ingredients, and that is not a small thing. A supplement a dog will not eat is money you will not get back and support she will not get either.

I would settle the question of the dog's mouth before anything else. If she takes a tablet, buy the simpler bottle and stop agonizing over it. If she turns her head away from anything new, do not buy the tablet to prove a point. You will end up with a container in the cupboard and a dog who is no better off six weeks later. And if you are still stuck between the two, take the one your vet names and start it. The six weeks between starting and noticing anything are the same six weeks either way, and the worst outcome is another winter of reading labels while your dog waits at the back steps.