Recurring shoulder injury

Our staffie is almost five and has always been very active. A few months ago she chased after a squirrel in the woods and somehow hit a tree with her shoulder. At the time she seemed to shrug it off and kept running but after a couple of weeks she became rather stiff legged following longer runs that must have continued to aggravate the injury and then one day we saw her hobbling in the kitchen.

The vet suspected it was a soft tissue injury and prescribed metacam for a couple of weeks along with gentle walks. She looked better after just a few days and after 3 weeks we started her running again in a nearby field, which she clearly enjoyed. On the third day though she hit a rabbit hole with that same leg and later that day she was hobbling again...

We used the little bit of metacam we had left and she even seemed happier the next day but we walked her gently for the next couple of weeks. The first time we let her off in the field she trotted gently besides us and all seemed well, but later the same day the limp returned

Once again I visited the vet and this time we came away with a bigger bottle of metacam. We've been restricting her to no more than a couple walks a day on the lead of less than 2 miles each and this gives her no trouble at all, though I am sure she would rather be running.

My only confusion really is over when it will be safe to start letting her run again because I want to heal this properly. She has been back on the metacam now for the last two weeks and we have also been giving her glucosamine. In the meanwhile has put on a couple kilos in weight and started to lose some of her old muscle tone, due to the lack of real exercise, so I think we will have to start her back gently at some point, while also cutting down on her food in the meanwhile.

I've never had a dog suffer an injury like this before so I just wondered if anybody had any other ideas for how to treat this and avoid a recurrence.

Sometimes it can take quite a while for a muscle/tendon injury to heal. But you might also be rushing her too much with the off lead play - too much too soon.

I'd keep the lead walks up for a week or so more & then just gradually add some off lead time, increasing it slightly day by day. Give the area time to build up strngth again before she goes full-pelt!

Agree with Caryll. Just take it slow and gradually increase the activity after the injury has healed

This is more or less what I thought we had done the last time. The strange thing is that she can pull like a train on the lead and show no ill effects at all afterwards.

I'll try giving her another couple of weeks on the lead while continuing with the metacam and then possibly try the first short runs somewhere with soft even ground. She has had the odd mad moment when she has gone a bit nuts around the garden for a few seconds but it hasn't caused any problems. She also runs and and down the stairs faster than I would like but again that hasn't provoked any limping afterwards.

I guess we'll just have to be patient and hope it goes right.

ashleyk wrote:This is more or less what I thought we had done the last time. The strange thing is that she can pull like a train on the lead and show no ill effects at all afterwards.

It could be the twisting & turning during off lead running that's doing it.

I guess that has to be the case. She also has a habit of doing rolly pollies directly onto that shoulder as her big game when running in the field which probably doesn't help. Every now and then there is a chance she rolls directly onto something hard as well.

Softly, softly and with patience I guess.

Just as a follow up to my earlier posts Bailey seems to be doing much better now and I let her run off the lead for twenty minutes today without problems so far. She's desperate to sprint everywhere, so it's a job and half trying to keep her sensible while she backs to full fitness.

She is still on the Metacam but it was the introduction of Seraquin two weeks ago that seemed to make the real difference. She had a spring in her step after just a few days. In the past she was always stiff legged for the first minute or so after resting but that has all but disappeared now. A quick stretch and she's fine.

We shall continue with a gradual increase in off lead exercise and stick with the Metacam until it runs out but I may well keep her on Seraquin for life. It's basically glucosamine, chondroitin and turmeric. It's not a prescription item and you can buy it online so it works out at about £7 a month.

Glad she's improving!

ashleyk wrote:so it's a job and half trying to keep her sensible .

Sensible? A Stafford?

She's a tubby lady at the moment or full bodied as they would say in polite circles, despite having cut her diet by 30% during the last couple of months. She's currently 21 kilos and I want to slowly get her back down to her pre-injury weight of 18.5 kilos. It shows just how much difference the exercise was making though in maintaining her weight before despite a gluttonous apetite.

ashleyk wrote:She's a tubby lady at the moment or full bodied as they would say in polite circles

She's pleasantly plump!