Yes, we have a dog stroller too for our doxie. He likes to walk, but he can’t walk as far as our 3 year old yorkie. So the stroller is a nice concession.
Snowball…yes, the recommendations on the bags are usually MANY more calories than your dog requires. Depends a bit on the dog, though. I know some working border collies who chase birds off runways that probably eat more than what the bags say. Activity level figures in.
But yes, absolutely, if your pet is starting to put on a little weight post-spay, cutting calories by 25% is a great place to start. I’d also suggest upping exercise and replacing high calorie dog treats with baby carrots, mini rice cakes…or just lots of love:)
14 year old lab/golden/who knows mix here (adopted at age 4-ish). We have rugs along the hardwood floors so she can go from one to the next, a dog bed in the rooms we mostly hang out in, Novox for the past few months - that was a big improvement, and less food as she doesn’t exercise as much due to arthritis so was getting heavy.
She loves bits of raw veggies as treats.
All the elderly dogs I have ever had tend to nap in the house’s high traffic spots. We probably reinforce the behavior by stopping to pat them. It is tough not being followed everywhere anymore. I don’t blame them- I wish I were done carrying laundry from the 2nd floor to the basement.
Better from the 2nd floor to the basement than from the basement to the 2nd floor. 
The advice about keeping the dogs a little lean and exercising them every day (or as often as possible) is just the same for us humans.
One of our furry girls is nearing 14. She tore her ACL last year, wore a brace for a few months, and has healed well with no surgery. She has arthritis and is on Rimadyl and Tramadol. She did the Cartrophen regimen earlier this year and there was a noticeable improvement. She gets two one hour walks a day. She doesn’t go as quickly as she used to but she enjoys being out and seeing her neighborhood friends. She also plays out in our large yard with her furry sisters once or twice a day. We have reduced her food for the past couple of years, and she gets two supplements on it daily which must taste good because she licks the dish long after the food is gone. The suppliements are an Omega 3 capsule that we puncture and squirt the liquid onto the food, and also 4cyte which is for joint and cartilage support. Her favorite treats are made by Head to Tail and are called simply Hip & Joint, made with Goji berries and contain glucosamine, and chondroitin. She also gets an occasional baby carrot, or pieces of apple, and an after dinner bit of cheese when my H is having his. 
The other thing we’ve done for her is to buy her an L.L.Bean therapeutic bed/couch which distributes her weight and eliminates pressure points. There are three bolsters that allow her to lean and have support for her back.
I forgot about the 4" memory foam dog bed. Pets are such money pits but I wouldn’t live without them.
This thread is making me anxious. I’m ridiculously attached to my dog.
@Midwest67 I have been admiring the avatar photo of your dog for weeks now.
@“Snowball City”
Thank you! If it had a caption it would be “Mr. Handsome Man has bed head”!
Reminded of our Shih Tzu who died several years ago just before age 12 (young for his breed). btw- he ate ad lib- could leave dry food out and he only ate what he wanted. Good physique. He did more for us than we did for him in his last year.
He developed eye problems and we made one trip to a vet ophthalmologist. Not cataracts and nonreversible but expensive OTC hypertonic saline drops would help with progression. Tried one bottle but not worth the hassle (or cost/benefit ratio). Shih Tzus have minds of their own.
His final month or so started with a vet trip instead of the groomer. His symptoms turned out to be cerebellar eventually (disc suspected at first)- we’ll never know if infection, bleed or tumor (even if we wanted the expenses of CT scans et al online research showed they were not useful, nor was a necropsy to satisfy my curiosity worthwhile).
Poor dog went through aggressive atypical behavior when we tried to leash him for the trip outdoors et al to cerebellar going in corners or circles endlessly to lying there and needing frequent washing in the laundry tub for his incontinence. Initially we tried some appropriate seeming drugs (MD here) without effect. Had to clean up liver sausage plus pill he spit onto his long messy back, sigh. Son was away for a summer college REU so we kept our dog alive the extra week or so until he came back (initially thinking was recovery possible- apparently dogs can do so in 2 weeks after a stroke). I hand fed him peanut butter and fluids near the end and scheduled the vet apt for the Monday afternoon after son’s Saturday return. On Sunday I held him on my lap (for me as much as for him) awhile then let him be outdoors on the grass to feel it and hear the sounds. He was alive when H left for work Monday but stiff when I checked on him later. The vet trip was for cremation, not end of life that afternoon. He knew waiting for son was important, even though I was the primary caretaker. Later I talked with my father who so many decades later remembered the trauma of his childhood dog dying while he was away at school. Glad it worked out for son to say goodbye.
Oh, @wis75, now I’m crying.
I agree strongly that most dogs are overfed. Most of them are also fed crappy food. It isn’t necessary to go grain free, unless your dog is the rare one that has allergies, but the grains should be whole grains like barley, not corn, which they basically don’t digest and is there to be cheap filler, like beet pulp, and the other carbs should be things like legumes (lentils and peas), vegetables, fruit. The guidelines on most bags of food–especially the supermarket/Walmart kind of food–are ridiculously high. They want you to buy more.
If you buy a good food, your dog will eat less of it, be healthier, and will have smaller, firmer, stools. Try Fromms in the purple bag for something not grain free, not wildly expensive, but good.
It is easy for me to control my dog’s weight, but not my own. She only gets to eat what I give her. There really is no excuse for having a fat dog. You should be able to easily feel their ribs. Even better, you should be able to see them at least faintly when the dog turns to the side, depending on the coat. They should have a waist. Depending on the breed, they should have a tuck-up.
Something that drives me crazy is people shaving the coats of dogs like golden retrievers. No, you are NOT making them more comfortable. You are destroying their coat, no matter what the groomer tells you. (Hint: the groomer makes money from persuading you that this is a good idea.) Get an undercoat rake and use it to brush your dog at least once a month. They won’t get mats. Once a week is better, but even every few weeks is enough. Even with Aussies, my friend the dog trainer who used to show them says that if they get matted, you can fix it by putting conditioner on their coat–a lot, one gathers --leaving it for 10-20 minutes, then brushing/combing them out.
What is your best technique for getting burrs out of a longer coat?
A greyhound comb, plus fingers. And prompt attention.
I just bought this brush and am very pleased at how much dead hair it removes without being hard on my pup’s skin:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00O0WOMCQ/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I also like Fromm’s food for my dog.
I did not read the thread, only your OP, but want to chime in and say Selegeline was a miracle drug for my dog from about age 13-16. I got it from a compounding pharmacy in Los Alamitos, CA. They mailed it to me. Our vet prescribed it, but I found out about it from the internet, and he had never prescribed it before. She needed it for dementia, or canine cognitive dysfunction. It helped her so much, including with her “sundowning,” waking up in the night and being anxious. It also helped her some with mobility.
Honestly, basically nothing.
Our border collie died about 1 1/2 years ago at the age of 15 1/2. The only medical attention she had was about one year earlier when she fell into the fire pit because H didn’t realize she was blind. We would have put her down because the burns were bad and the vet wanted $100/visit to change the bandages, etc. and it had to be done two to three times a day, but H was willing to do wound care (guilt speaking) and I paid for the supplies. The vet did prescribe pain killers which we gave her for the first few weeks. I am still shocked that she actually lived through it. She died the next summer lying on the grass in the front yard, just hours before we were going to take her to the vet because she was failing.
We currently have a lab-chow mix, who is 16, and a rescue Yorkie that we took in one month after the border collie died because the lab-chow had never been an only dog. We were told the Yorkie was at least 14 so she is probably also 16. The lab-chow is beginning to fail, she is blind, probably deaf and on and off incontinent. She eats the same discount Costco dry food she always has, though if she seems fussy, H will mix some wet food in with it. The children are aware that she could pass at any time and by agreement, the choice as to if and when she is put down is with H, who is the person responsible for cleaning up after her. When he is no longer willing to do it, it will be time and each child has promised not to second guess. Till then, we are crating her at night on a wee wee pad and when the weather is nice, letting her out in the front yard on a 30’ lead so she can wander around. The Yorkie is a bundle of energy.
We did get an exemption from the municipality this year from having to get them rabies shots because of their ages. However, the cat will be getting the shot since she is only 5 1/2 and, as an indoor-outdoor cat, is the main vector that could expose the dogs. We don’t live in a high rabies area or I would get them the shot anyway.
They get no vitamins, supplements, minerals. fancy or raw diets or the like. H doesn’t take them for annual vet check-ups and I leave it up to him. I am in charge of human health in the household and he is in charge of non-human. I only tolerate the dogs because I didn’t want the kids to grow up afraid like I am. They are not but I still am. The dogs have been trained to avoid me like the plague.
We have outlived many of our dogs, but all but one of them lasted at least 14 years. We were not able to afford the $500 to $700 estimate for surgery for the chow/mongrel that had cancer at 10 and a half, when the prognosis was only 50/50 anyway.
We’ve fed them Purina, and given them more love and attention than most dogs get - but they repay it with their love, joy, and amazement every time we fill their dish. We know they aren’t supposed to eat table scraps, but they love the leftover steak bone when we are fortunate enough to get steak ourselves, we treat them as well.
It is hard to watch them suffer when they can no longer climb stairs, or jump on the couch/bed. We have given them glucosamine chondroitin (picked up at Sam’s or BJ’s) for their joints, after discussion with a vet who told us once they get to age 10 they may start to slow down. Depending on the breed - we’ve had large and small, but the larger ones tend to develop joint problems earlier.
We don’t do regular vet checkups, but we get their annual shots for the license / boarding at the traveling lovemypet clinic.
I found this article really comforting…“7 things your senior dog wants to tell you” (goes for humans too 
http://www.mnn.com/family/pets/stories/7-things-your-senior-dog-would-like-to-tell-you