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A 12-year-old German Shepherd, a bath towel, and the one thing nobody told me about why his back legs kept giving out.
Honestly, I'm not proud of that. Hank is my 12-year-old German Shepherd. He's been with me through a divorce, 2 moves, and more bad days than I can count.
When everything else in my life fell apart, he was the one thing that stayed the same. Every night he'd be waiting at the door, tail going, like I was the best thing that ever happened to him.
So when that started to change, I didn't want to see it.
Last winter he stopped meeting me at the door. I'd come home and he'd just thump his tail from his bed.
I figured he was old and a little lazy. So I'd clap my hands and say, "Come on, buddy, get up."
Then one morning I actually watched him try. His front legs pushed, but his back legs slid out behind him on the floor.
He tried 3 times. Then he gave up and just looked at me.
"I felt sick. He wasn't lazy. He couldn't do it."
I bought the joint chews with glucosamine. I put fish oil on his dinner. The vet put him on pain pills for his hips.
Some days he seemed a little better. Most days he didn't.
By spring I was lifting his back end with a bath towel just so he could go outside to pee. I'd stand there in the cold, bent over, holding him up, and wonder how much longer we had.
The turning point came from a strange place. I was in physical therapy for my own knee.
My therapist asked about my week, and I told her about Hank and the towel.
She said, "Is it his joints, or is he losing muscle?"
I didn't know. She told me to go home and feel the back of his thigh.
That night I did. His shoulders felt thick and strong. His back legs felt like bone covered in fur.
At my next session, she explained something I had never heard before.
Every cell in his body runs on something called NAD+. It's the fuel the cell uses to make energy and to fix itself.
In dogs, it starts dropping around 7. By the senior years, only a small part of it is left. And the parts of the body that work the hardest run out first.
For a dog, that's the big muscles in the back legs. The ones that push him up off the floor.
"The chews were for his joints. The pills were for his pain. Nothing I gave him touched the muscle that was running out of fuel."
It finally made sense why nothing had worked. I had been fixing everything around the problem, and none of it touched the problem itself.
I went home and started reading everything I could. What I kept finding was that NAD+ alone isn't enough. It takes 4 things working together, and if one is missing, the whole process fails.
The raw material the body uses to make its own NAD+. Old dogs can't make it fast enough anymore, so they need more of it to rebuild the supply.
NMN takes time to build up, so NAD+ itself fills the tank right away while the body catches up.
The spark plug. It helps the cells actually use the fuel. Without it, the NMN just sits there.
Protects the cells and helps the body hold on to the NAD+ it makes, so it doesn't leak back out.
Most products I found only had 1 or 2 of these. And most of them were pills or powders that only get about 15 to 25% absorbed.
Then I came across NC-01. It had all 4 in one liquid.
It's made with something called nanoliposomal delivery, so about 98% of it actually gets absorbed. And it has no taste, which mattered, because Hank had gotten good at spitting out anything hidden in cheese.
I didn't change anything else. Same food, same routine. I just added the dropper.
Nothing changed. I almost stopped.
I was in the kitchen when I heard him get up from his bed by himself. Just like that.
The towel went back in the closet. He was walking to the door on his own when I came home. Not fast, but on his own.
We did our old loop around the block. Slow, but all of it.
Last week I came home and he was standing at the door, tail going, the way he used to.
I had to sit down on the step for a minute. I didn't trust my legs.
He's still 12. He still has slow mornings. But he gets himself up, and that's all I ever wanted for him.
"I keep thinking about how close I came to giving up on him."
The way I see it now, you've got 2 options.
Option 2 is the one I picked, and I'm glad I did. If you want to see what I use, here's the one I give Hank.
NC-01 is only sold on the official website. I've seen look-alikes on Amazon and in stores that don't have all 4 ingredients, so if you look into it, go straight to the source.
All 4 ingredients in one tasteless dropper, from the official website.
Check Availability Only available on the official ChilaPet siteReal notes from people whose dogs were slipping, struggling to stand and getting weaker in the back legs.
I'm not a supplement person. I figured it was one more thing to waste money on. But I was already lifting Rosie with a towel to get her outside, so I tried it. Nothing the first 2 weeks. Around week 4 I heard her get up off the kitchen floor by herself, and I just stood there with the coffee pot in my hand.
We'd already tried an NMN powder before this, plus the glucosamine chews our vet suggested. Didn't see much from either. This one has all 4 in the same bottle, and it's a liquid, so Duke actually gets the whole dose. He spits out pills. Slow going, but by month 2 he was back up the porch steps without me behind him.
Everyone kept saying hips, hips, hips. Then I actually felt the back of Maggie's legs and they were so thin compared to her shoulders. Reading about NAD+ dropping after 7 was the first explanation that matched what I was seeing. At her checkup around 3 months, our vet said her back legs felt fuller than last time.
Bruno isn't running around like a puppy, he's 14. But I used to hear his nails scrambling on the hardwood every time he stood up, and now most mornings I don't. He still has slow days. He just doesn't slide out anymore when he turns the corner into the hallway, and I'll take that.
I'd been bracing for the quality of life talk with our vet for months. I only ordered because of the 90 day guarantee, honestly. It's one dropper on his breakfast and he has no idea it's there. Cooper still needs a hand on the stairs some days, but I haven't had to carry him outside since spring.
Mark Ellison lives in Ohio with Hank, his 12-year-old German Shepherd. He writes about life with an older dog for owners going through the same thing.
This article is a personal story shared by a dog owner. Individual experiences vary from dog to dog. The content on this page is for general information only and is not a substitute for advice from your veterinarian.
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.
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