I feel like I've done all I can for my senior dog's arthritis, but it still doesn't feel like enough

Hello everyone,

My senior dog, Goose, is a 14.5 year old pitbull terrier mix and she has been struggling with arthritis for years now.

Back in February of 2024 she was outside on her own going to the bathroom, she then came back to the porch and wouldn't bear any weight on her left leg. I immediately brought her to the emergency vet to discover she had torn her CCL and apparently she had also always had luxating patellas but no one ever knew.

We were in talks about potentially doing the surgery, but ultimately decided against it because 1) the living situation I was in a the time wasn't the most conducive to her healing from surgery and 2) I was told she didn't need the surgery and dogs can do fine without it. However, I feel I wasn't really informed of the consequences of not doing the surgery, otherwise I would have.

Fast forward to now and her arthritis is progressively getting worse. She walks with a very identifiable limp (though she still follows me around, wants to go one 10 minute walk each day, and even can jump on the couch despite the perfectly good set of stairs next to the couch), but she can also move rather quickly. The biggest problem (I think) is that she is INCREDIBLY stiff. The other night I went to do some passive range of motion on her leg for the first time in a long time and I am serious when I say her knee literally would not bend (don't worry, I was very gentle and did not force anything).

However, I did notice that 5-10 minutes under a heating pad on the lowest setting loosened up her muscles so much and I was actually able to bend her knee. But I cannot constantly heat her knee, though of course I'm willing to do it multiple times per day if needed.

So this leads me to my question: what more can I do?

She's currently on 0.85mg adequan 1x per week, 300mg gabapentin every 8 hours, senior dasiquin chews, and she just did a one week trial of rimadyl to see if it did anything (I didn't notice much of a difference, and we only did a trial as she does have some elevated liver enzymes), she has stairs to get on the couch and I built her a ramp to get on to bed.

I was considering bringing her to a rehab place to do a few sessions, but she despises car rides, so it would definitely be tough.

I know there comes a point where I just have to accept her body is just getting older, but I want to do everything I can to keep her comfortable and happy.

Thank you for any advice.