Marley just having all sorts of issues lately.

Well i have made him an appointment for 11:30 about 2 hrs from now, but I wanted to see what you all thought first. Last night for the first time ever I noticed he was favoring his right leg. He loves playing fetch and literally raises hell after his ball in the backyard throwing and digging up grass as he runs after it, so he has always played hard. Last night I noticed after he had been laying down for a bit, that when he got up he was limping and couldnt put much pressure on it (almost like it was asleep and tingling). I sat down in the floor with him and tried to deep tissue message his should felt around digging at tendons, straightening his leg out for him to give me some sign of where it hurt. To this day I have yet to hear him yelp out of pain (even when my 6 yr old niece stepped on his foot when he was only 4 months old). Like I was saying he didnt respond to my inspection of his leg; Then he would walk around and look fine and intermittently it would come back and he would start limping again. We gave him lots of love, watched him for the ret of the night and went to bed, hoping maybe he would be fine by morning. Well this morning when I went to go get him out of his crate it happened again. He is holding it up and not walking on it, then he's fine, then it bothers him again.

I got to reading about "cushings" disease and it had me worried. Maybe its something as simple as he pulled something, I just don't want to get hypothetically bent over by the vet this afternoon. PS: the internet is the worst place ever to look up symptoms for sickness and disease, it always leaves the most horrible thought on a loving petowners' mind.

Thanks for any and all help per the usual guys,
Josh

Glad to see you are going to the vets. Since they are so high energy they tend to pull or strain a muscle or tendon on occasion. However they are also prone to certain genetic problems so it's always best to be cautious and seek an expert medical opinion. Please keep us updated and we hope it all works out for you.

I just hope I dont get there and they do all sorts of tests just to tell me he has a pulled muscle. I know this is what I signed up for but the Vet and their premiums make me upset.

Vets fees are a pain, are you insured? Even then you have an excess Moo has done this but not to the extreme so I guess a trip to the vets is possiably your only option, and I do hope they say its just a pulled muscle!

Good luck and let us know how you get on Xx

janey wrote:Vets fees are a pain, are you insured? Even then you have an excess Moo has done this but not to the extreme so I guess a trip to the vets is possiably your only option, and I do hope they say its just a pulled muscle!

Good luck and let us know how you get on Xx

I would strongly advise pet insurance for all pet handlers. I think it is just as essential as health insurance for people.

^thanks guys, ill be back on to inform everyone once we get back. I am definitely going to look into pet insurance. Will my vet know anything about it or do I need to contact a 3rd party company?

Ask your vets advice and then come on here and ask

Generally vets endorse insurance and I thinks its 'Pet Plan' which can be expensive, but also very good, there are so many options it can become confusing but as jstaff said it is important.

hope you get to the bottom of Marley's problem .

Yes it is always a worry when there is something not right with our pets..

Ok well I just got back and we couldnt get him to raise a fuss about his leg while at the vet. She pushed and pulled and squeezed and extended his arm/foot but we couldnt get a rise out of him. She says to watch him for the next 5 days and have him rest (yes much easier said than done lady). She prescribed an anti-inflammatory in the meantime and if it doesnt get better or I noticed any patterns she wants to bring him back in to scan his shoulder for ligament damage or dysplasia of the shoulder.

I dont know what to think or where to begin, my poor pup its pityful because he started doing it again the moment we got home and holds it up and wont walk on it very well.

I know one thing I got neary 20 brochures for pet insurance while there. Time to do some research. I will keep you all posted.

Poor you, its heart breaking that they can't just tell us what is wrong! Makes you feel very helpless

The only problem with insuance now is that probably won't cover a pre existing condition.

I hope it all works out and please keep us updated, really hoping its just a trapped nerve, its so annoying he couldn't do it at the vets! Typical Xx

Ok so looking at these pet insurances it seems that most of them have various loop holes in which they do not cover things. Clark howard says its best to take that premium and put it in a savings account instead. I am consfused, I would gladly purchase insurance for future issues, but if its just a sham I likely will not.

If you have a spare £2000 then I would agree, I believe putting money away yourself is a great thing (I partly do), but just be prepared for the unexpected.

It is confusing, I have never fourtunatly had to claim, and I also have low cover, but I do have public liability insurane, which imo is important.

Be careful performing a deep tissue massage on your dog if your not qualified as you can make a problem alot worse and can actually cause problems, like trapping a nerve or damaging the muscle.
Hope all goes well and that it was just something silly like a cramp.

poor thing!! i hope he is better soon!!!
i remember one person spent thousands on vet bills, because her dane was doing this with one of his legs .. he would walk normally then hold up the one paw and not use it etc, turns out after loads of test's and xrays, they went to a behaviorist and because he got attention every time i lifted his paw, he started doing it om a regular basis to gain the attention! :-| lol, luckily he is insured! thankfully he hadnt got an injury, just an attention seeking problem lol.

staffy-lover89 wrote:poor thing!! i hope he is better soon!!!
i remember one person spent thousands on vet bills, because her dane was doing this with one of his legs .. he would walk normally then hold up the one paw and not use it etc, turns out after loads of test's and xrays, they went to a behaviorist and because he got attention every time i lifted his paw, he started doing it om a regular basis to gain the attention! :-| lol, luckily he is insured! thankfully he hadnt got an injury, just an attention seeking problem lol.

Thats what Moo used to do! If I said firmly 'walk properly' she would. But I also know the pain threshold (sp) is vast. Moo stopped it, but I'm not a vet so am just hoping it could be this too

they are little beggers arnt they! lol Diesel did it too, he would actually wait for you too look at him and do it lol!.
But i agree to the taking him to the vets its never always this.

Milo did this about 2 weeks ago. The vet said he could have just bumped it and gave him an anti-inflammatory and total rest for a week. THat didnt really happen, but before the 7 days was up he was back to his old self running round like an idiot with Rex.

He started limping again yesterday, very briefly. So I'm thinking that Rex is just knocking him about a bit too much when they are running around.

I'm sure everything will be fine with Marley and the anti-inflammatories should do the trick.

my1stStaffyBull wrote:Ok so looking at these pet insurances it seems that most of them have various loop holes in which they do not cover things. Clark howard says its best to take that premium and put it in a savings account instead. I am consfused, I would gladly purchase insurance for future issues, but if its just a sham I likely will not.

I found it difficult to choose a pet insurance too - some of them only covered vets bills for illness, whilst others only covered for accident, and some of them looked like they didn't insure anything at all once you read the t&cs! I've now got one that covers the pup for illness and accident, loss, public liability and boarding fees should she ever need them. However, I also have a pot that I put money into (not huge amounts, and mainly pound coins!) just incase something unexpected happens that isn't covered. For example, what if she is in getting neutered, but something goes wrong and she has to stay at the vets for a few days - I don't know at the moment who would cover that, insurance, me or the vet, but at least if it's me, then I'm prepared.

Thats very wise putting money away, I might have look Into that for doing that with my dog, I have my pup Insured for 6 weeks, Threw people I had my pup micro chipped, But after gonna shop around and look at getting real good deal with the pet Insurance, And put money away Incase like you said Linzy something unexpected ever turns up, Hoping It NEVER does, But be safe than sorry!