Can you turn back the hands of time?

It only seems a blink of the eye since my lovely Poppy was a pup, but there's no denying that she's getting old.
I'm usually a realist, I don't buy myself the really expensive face creams but I'd pay almost anything to try to keep Poppy young!
Has anyone tried anything that has genuinely put a spring back into their old dogs step?
Henrietta Newman, Kent

Hi Henrietta
When my old Sal started to show her age I tried everything - but that was a long time ago. A couple of things really stood out.
Vivitonin (prescription only) really was a miracle drug - but it's not cheap. When she died at 16 Sal had the coat and muscle condition of a very much younger dog. Vivitonin was developed as a heart drug originally but as it puts the spring back into the red blood cells it really does seem to liven up every bit of the dog. You can normally see if there's going to be an effect in a couple of weeks. I was once told that in Japan it was being used on humans as an Alzheimer preventative.
The other thing that really made a difference to Sal's quality of life was a supplement called Runaround (from www.doghealth.co.uk). I was carrying Sally up and down the stairs at work before I started using that, really amazing results. I know our readers who had a free trial of it at that time had great results, too
What have others tried? Any wonder stuff been discovered in the last decade?
Beverley Cuddy, Editor