My 9 year old boxer messed up her hip getting of the couch and when the vet did x-rays they discovered she has bad arthritis through out her back and knees. The vet has her on meds for the inflammation and pain meds, but said it was perfectly OK to feed her pieces of cookies for the pain. This came up because the vet asked how she hasn't been in a lot of pain before, and I explained to her that she has and even though it's illegal, I give her some cookie and she is good to go. The vets actual words were,"if it's not broken, don't fix it".