How Coco and Luna Turmeric Became Part of Our Senior Dog's Morning

At seven every morning, Biscuit's breakfast goes down in a fixed order. Dry kibble in the stainless bowl first. Then five things on top of it, one after another, the way I have done it for two years now. The last of the five is Coco and Luna Turmeric, and it is the one I get asked about most, usually by someone standing in my kitchen holding a phone with a listing open, wanting to know whether it is worth adding a fifth thing to a dog who is already on four.

I am not a vet. I am a retired band director, sixty two years old, and I live outside Dubuque with my husband Glen and one ten year old yellow Lab and golden retriever mix named Biscuit. What I have is a practice log. I used to hand logs like it to students, one line a day, and now the line is about the dog: how he got up, how the stairs went, how far we walked. That log is the only reason I can tell you anything at all.

Biscuit was diagnosed in September 2024. Arthritis in both hips and stiffness in the left knee, plain on the X-rays. Dr. Amundsen has been his vet since he was a puppy and she is careful with him, because he was ten years old and seventy two pounds and not on any prescription pain medication. That was a conversation for later. What she suggested first was a joint supplement, and we started with Cosequin in October 2024.

Everything has gone on the kibble ever since. In his first week with the chewable tablet he took it from my fingers, considered it, and spat it out on the floor. He eats nearly anything from a bowl, so the bowl it was. One thing at a time, months apart, so the log had room to show something. Cosequin in October 2024, Nordic Naturals fish oil in January 2025, Zesty Paws mussel bites in April 2025. Each one got about six weeks before I wrote anything down with confidence.

The fish oil never gave me a joint change I could point at. After about eight weeks his coat was softer and less flaky, and Dr. Amundsen had recommended it, so it stayed in the refrigerator door. The mussel bites did something modest, right around six weeks, when the log stopped recording him lagging on the last stretch of the walk. Which brings me to July 2025, and to turmeric.

I cannot prove which of the five did what. I can tell you that on the first cold mornings that fall he loosened up a little faster, and I am not sure enough of it to say more than that.

Dr. Amundsen read the label before he started it. That is not me being fussy. That is a ten year old dog already on three other things, and she wanted to see what was in the bottle first. Turmeric root and BioPerine, a tablet rather than a soft chew, bacon and liver flavor. She said it was fine to try. I have given him the label's amount for his weight, on top of breakfast, and he has never had anything at dinner.

The first weeks told me nothing, which is what I expected by then. Around the time the cold mornings started that fall, I wrote that he loosened up a little faster getting off the kitchen floor. A little faster. That is the whole claim and I am not going to inflate it. I cannot separate it from the Cosequin he had been taking for a year or the mussel bites from the spring, and I will not pretend I can. What I can tell you is that he had no stomach trouble on it, and there was never a week where I thought about stopping it.

By November 2025 he was on four things and I nearly skipped the fifth. LubriSyn HA was Dr. Amundsen's idea, and I said out loud that we were becoming ridiculous. She said it was fine to try. Two weeks in, nothing. Around five weeks, he came down the thirteen indoor stairs steadier. Modest again. That has been the pattern with every one of these, as far as I can tell.

Where he is now, in November 2026: he gets up easier than he did that September, he walks about twenty five minutes, and he comes down the stairs steadily and goes up them slowly. Cold, wet days are still his worst. He is not cured and he is not young again. Nothing in the bowl made him run or jump, and the days of him hopping into the back of the Subaru are done. Glen lifts his back end in, and will keep lifting it.

What I'd Tell You If We Were Sitting at My Kitchen Table

If you were across from me with a cup of coffee, the first thing I would say is that supplements support joints. They do not treat arthritis and they do not relieve pain, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something. I would tell you to talk to your own vet before you add anything, because Dr. Amundsen read every label before a single one of these went near my dog, and because your dog at your house is not my dog at mine.

Then I would tell you to keep a log. One line a day, on paper, on the kitchen counter, because memory is a liar about slow things. And I would tell you plainly what Coco and Luna Turmeric is not. It is not the thing that turned him around. The six weeks that changed the log were Cosequin, in the fall of 2024. The turmeric came nine months later, into a dog who was already moving better, as the fourth of five. If you are starting from nothing, start with your vet and one thing, and give it six honest weeks before you decide.