My dog started limping. One night she was fine, the next morning (Sunday morning) she had trouble going down the stairs and and was trying not to put her weight on it. Still, she seemed in good spirits and it didn’t slow her down much.
This morning (Monday morning), she had major issues with the stairs and is now walking mainly on 3 legs, with the 4th just hovering. Its her rear left leg.
I called my buddy’s sister, who is a vet. She suggested grabbing the leg and moving it around every joint until she let started wimpering like it hurt, so we could isolate the injury. She never made a noise like she was uncomfortable the whole time I was grabbing, squeezing, and rotating. I checked the paw for a thorn or splinter. I didn’t see any, and she didn’t seem to mind when I squeezed her paw, either. Anyway, this was on Sunday night. She told me dogs are excellent self-healers and she’d probably be fine in a few days.
But I didn’t expect the problem to be worse this morning. She’s starting to look down in the dumps and depressed about it. I squeezed her leg all over this morning too, and she didn’t seem to mind it. My buddy’s sister lives a few hundred miles away and she can’t examine the dog. I’m not opposed to going to the vet, but I don’t want to spend a few hundred to be told “nothing you can do. she’ll get better.”
She was a shelter dog, so I don’t know how old she is. Between 5-6 years old, most likely. She’s a medium sized dog, about 45 pounds. She’s a mutt, but mostly Chow. When do I take her in?
First of all, a possible scenario is that your dog blew out her ACL. That’s not going to cost a few hundred to find out. It’s just going to cost a lot to fix. A vet should be able to tell if that’s what it is just by pulling on the joint. Doesn’t need to do an MRI or anything.
The good news is this: it’s probably not that. That would have happened when the dog was running/jumping and it would have come up limping.
One thing you can do in the mean time is give the dog some aspirin. We give our 60 pound dog half an aspirin from time to time. He’s kind of got an arthritic leg.
Your dog might have just sprained it/is coming down with arthritis (5-6 is about that age). I’d give her some aspirin and wait another day.
Sometimes, it’s a day after heavy activity that my dog will be sort of gimpy, and the weather seems to affect it, too. Has it been cold and/or damp where you are?
the slightest bit of discomfort sends him in a tizzy fit. when he was a puppy he used to do somersaults at the end of the 26 foot retractable leash because he’d get to the end of it at about 45 miles per hour. eventually, he hurt his neck doing it and he’s very keen of where that 26 feet is. he’s better now, but he also whimpers like his tongus is being yanked out if the smiplest thing happens. he’s about a mid life-middle upper life and every once in a while, he gets a touch gimpy too.
then again, this beagle LOVES his walks…but if the weather sucks…he’ll pass on the entire day. he’ll go back to bed, curl up under the covers and sleep until 5, if need be. what a spoiled brat.
She could have just twisted her ankle-- that happened to my dog one time. In about three days, she was fine. Unless she has any other symptoms, I’d say give it another day or two and see if it goes away on its own. If not, hie thee to a vet.
I second the recommendation of aspirin. I’ve always found baby aspirin to be best. Because it’s flavored, dogs will often eat it without you having to conceal it in a treat, and you don’t have to worry about them getting too high of a dosage.
Yeah, its both cold and damp where I am at the moment. It’s 14 and snowy right now. She’s always seemed to love the cold before, though.
The thing is, she’s a very excitable dog and could have torn a muscle or something when I wasn’t around. While I’m fumbling with my keys in the door, I just see her head keep popping up into the window and she jumps up and down continuously to see me. I know she does the same for the mailman, although she does it while barking when he’s there. She could have injured herself while jumping up and down like an idiot or something.
I’ll feed her some aspirin and give it anothe day or 2. It just breaks my heart to see her limping around.
One of my dogs blew out two ACLs (in succesive years). ONe way you can check if there’s damage is to flip the paw over so she’s standing on the top of her foot. A dog’s natural reaction will be to flip back right away. If she doesn’t, there may be nerve or tendon damage. I’m not one to rush my animals to the vet (or myself to the doctor) because I think most thinks will fix themselves given time. But that’s a quick way to see if it’s something serious. Also - the vet that did the surgery on Kate’s knees said that smaller dogs can often go without the surgery altogether. THe bigger the dog, the more important it is to surgically fix the problem.
Along with aspirin, restrict her activity as much as possible. Crate rest, if she’s crate trained. Or just leash her to you while you are home and sitting around. No walks, no running, restict her outdoor time, etc.
Rest is also real important in healing inflammation.
If she were mine, I’d do the aspirin/rest/wait and see approach for 3-4 days before going to my vet.
Also (I’m not a vet, but have tons of experience as a dogowner) I think your buddy’s-sister-the-vet gave you dumb advice. A layperson isn’t going to be able to tell squat by twisting and prodding a dog’s leg. She could have given you better advice than that.
Well, any layperson would be able to tell if a joint seems swollen, or if any of the bones don’t feel right just by comparing with the other leg. Also, if the dog jerked away or yelped, that would give you an indication there was actually an injury, as opposed to a strain. I don’t think the advice was so out of line considering the situation.
That said, not all dogs vocalize or jerk away when they’re in pain. My eldest dog will whimper if it even hurts a little bit (much like we’d say, “Ow! Don’t do that!”) But my youngest dog is very timid and placid. I’ve seen the vet do things to him that must have hurt, but he just sat there as still as a statue.
Well kind of true, but something like a torn ACL isn’t something a layman can feel, and it’s a lot more serious than a mere muscle pull. Bone cancer causes limping too, and can only be diagnosed with biopsy, though some other indicators (high white blood cell count, eg) can be a clue. I have a dog with elbow dysplasia, it took my vet and two board-certified ortho guys to get a clear, detailed diagnosis. (Although I very much doubt it’s ED in the OP’s dog, she fits none of the criteria for it; but it could be a hip thing.)*
Seems it would have been more responsible and useful for the vet to say, “check for swelling or punctures, carefully check for torn or split toenails, inspect pads & between toes, look to see if the feet are turned out or in…if you see nothing & dog is otherwise acting OK, do aspirin with food plus rest for 2-3 days.”
You’re right though, some dogs are very stoic; some will wince and yell at the merest pain. One of mine gets quite hysterical if a little thorn gets stuck in her pad, the other would just keep truckin’ if his leg was hanging off by one tendon.
Okay, new diagnosis. I got home from work, and she’s limping a little less than she was this morning. There were a few drops of blood near her water bowl. She was frantically chewing and licking her paw on her injured leg. I touched her paw and she yelped, even though just this morning I squeezed it pretty hard with no reaction. I can see a bit of dried blood on her “toe”, right underneath her nail. She’s not being cooperative when I try to get a closer look.
Can dogs get ingrown nails? Or did she just step on something outside that happens to be near her nail?
I’ve never heard of a dog getting an ingrown toenail. It could be she split the skin near the nail by stepping on something, or she has a splinter and the chewing caused the blood to appear.
This is something a vet should probably deal with, because you don’t want her to get an infection.
Dogs can quite easily rip a nail a bit from the nail bed, or split a toenail. Both can be quite painful. I imagine it’s trickier to see this sort of thing with a long haired dog. Do you keep her nails trimmed? If they get too long, it’s easier for them to split or tear, and that’s probably not uncommon.
If it’s split you may be able to disinfect and super-glue it. The downside there is trapping a little bit of dirt or something and it getting infected. There’s also some sort of fungal infection - I cannot recall the name - where the “core” of the toenail gets infected and mushy and painful. Can you smell anything bad on her foot?
I’d guess maybe a vet visit at this point, unless you can really see something simple like a split nail. There’s so many little bones in the foot…it would be a real drag if she wound up getting a nasty bone infection.
