Guest Trey Posted December 30, 2013 Share Posted December 30, 2013 Hello Everyone, My big brindle boy Trey has been limping on and off for the last few days and I'm trying not to have the "AAAAHH! OSTEO!!" panic attack because of it. My gut tells me it might be tendon/muscle related - I noticed about seven days ago that he was moving a bit like he was stiff in the morning. I made a mental note of it and wondered if it was because it was a bit cold that morning and he's getting on in years (he's now 8). Then when I got home after work that day, he did his zoomies around the living room like he normally does, and when I took him for his walk he seemed perfectly fine so I put it out of my mind. Then on Saturday morning he started walking with more of a pronounced limp on his right leg (not a bad limp - he still will walk on it and stand on it, but he limps/hobbles a bit), but then he's able to "walk it off' and it gets better the more he moves. He doesn't hold the leg up (he stands on it), he's not afraid to walk on it (I let him choose which walking route we take and yesterday he chose the longest route), he will use it to both step up and down from the curb, it gets better as the day goes on/the longer he moves (it's the worst in the morning and generally gets better as the day goes on and is only a little more pronounced when he first gets up from a nap, etc), and while he does forward and backward okay, I noticed that lateral movements are harder for him - turning in circles is awkward for him and this morning when he was scooting to the side to get a better view of me preparing his breakfast, he hobbled a bit. I know from spraining my own knee last month that lateral movements were more painful/difficult than walking forward. I can't think of something specific he did that could have caused an injury, though I suppose it would be easy to pull something while doing zoomies in the living room. Over Christmas we were out of town at a family member's house that had stairs and hardwood floors - two things he's not used to and had difficulty with them, so I could see how that could have caused something/aggrivated something. I will of course get him checked out by a vet, but I was just wondering if anyone here had a hound with similar symptoms. I know a limp can be caused by many things (not just osteo) and the fact that he can "walk it off" makes me think it is more soft tissue-related than bone-related, but I wondered if anyone had similar experiences they could share. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
a_daerr Posted December 30, 2013 Share Posted December 30, 2013 I'd go to the vet and insist on x-rays ASAP. Someone else recently posted with a similar issue, and my advice is this... Try not to allow the severity of the limp be your gauge. My Henry's limp started off hardly noticeable. I rationalized by telling myself, "There's no way it could be cancer. He'd be in more pain. He'd be limping more." But when we looked at the x-rays, the bone was full of lesions. It looked like swiss cheese. Obviously, that didn't happen overnight, so the only explanation is that he had gotten very good at disguising his symptoms for a very long time. By the time he was showing visible signs of pain, it must've been excruciating. I hope you're right, and that it's just a soft tissue injury. But you'll get more sleep at night knowing you did the x-rays. Good luck. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest RMarie Posted December 30, 2013 Share Posted December 30, 2013 I don't have any experience regarding my dog, but I have personally experienced a number of stress fractures in my feet and legs and can attest that in the beginning you can "walk off the pain." All of my stress fractures started out feeling like soft tissue injuries. I could 'warm them up' and the pain would be gone. But, eventually the cracks in the bone became too painful and the 'warm up' period never returned. Good luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Trey Posted December 31, 2013 Share Posted December 31, 2013 (edited) Thanks, everyone. I'm still thinking (hoping) it is an injury or some sort of itis (tendonitis, arthritis), and I base that not so much on the fact that his limp is mild but that it mostly appears after he first gets up after lying down for a while and is at its most pronounced in the morning (after he's been lying down for a long period of time), and then gets better the more he moves. He continues to confound me - when I got home from work today his happy dance was little less enthusiastic than normal, but then on our walk he kept a normal pace, mostly moved normally (again, not really limping but moving a bit like he's stiff from time to time), insisted on taking a longer route (even pulling and galloping a little in that direction at the point where we could turn off and go a shorter route - he made sure I didn't cheat him on his walk), flirted with and roo-ed at people who passed by, and took great pleasure in kicking up huge chunks of sod/dirt/bark dust after he peed (using all four legs, so he didn't favor the limp-y one while doing this). He certainly didn't act like he was in pain. Then after dinner and a nap, he followed me into the kitchen (about 3-4 hours after the walk) and was limping and holding his right foot up and I noticed that when he got up from his bed he let his left leg do most of the work. Then 90 minutes later I took him out for his pre-bedtime potty break, and he not only pushed himself up mostly on his "bad" leg to get up, but he walked around normally. He just wants to keep me confused. I wonder if he's having issues with his shoulder or neck - within the last couple months, he's had muscle spasms in his neck/shoulder area. Both times I saw it happen he was playing, then would suddenly stop, lie down, and hold perfectly still for a few minutes. The first time I couldn't figure out what he was doing, but the second time he did it I saw his muscles twitching/spasming. I think this current limp is based in his shoulder, and I wonder if the two are related. I'm still taking him in to get checked out, but with my luck he'll act totally normal when I take him in (like he did the last time I took him to the vet for a limp). Edited December 31, 2013 by Trey Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
45MPHK9 Posted December 31, 2013 Share Posted December 31, 2013 Get X-rays. Do not wait. Quote Tricia with Kyle, our senior mutt dog Always missing Murray Maldives, Bee Wiseman, River, Hopper, Kaia, and Holly Oaks Holly“You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.“ -Bob Dylan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest carriej Posted December 31, 2013 Share Posted December 31, 2013 I don't want to scare you - but I am probably unfortunately going to. Freeman started limping on his 8th birthday; mildly. Took him in to the vet, she felt around... Thought it was maybe a spine issue as she did an xray and seen two of his discs were closer together than they should be. Gave us drugs - happy days. For a week he was back to normal. Then he started limping again... Worse. Took him back, more X-rays... Found the osteo, in the socket that hooks into the hip (strange place). It was so bizarre, I sent it to OSU for confirmation. We kept him home for two more weeks until neither he nor us could take it anymore. Needless to say, if it's osteo it will most likely progress very quickly. From limp-euthanasia it was a month and one day with Freeman. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest mrs Posted December 31, 2013 Share Posted December 31, 2013 I hope Trey is feeling better. I'm going through the same thing with Smitty right now. He started limping last Thursday, but unlike Trey, the limp and pain are progressing. He's going in for an x-ray on Thursday, but having been through this with a previous greyhound, I'm truly expecting bone cancer and can only hope it's anything but. I do know Smitthy's brother died of osteosarcoma last year. I wonder if that gives Smitty an even higher incidence of getting cancer. Anyone know? I think the fact that Trey seems to work it out and is limping on and off may mean a muscle strain or ligament/tendon strain, but I'd get an x-ray just to be on the safe side. I'll keep checking back and will be sending lots of positive thoughts your way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Trey Posted December 31, 2013 Share Posted December 31, 2013 Thanks, everyone. I'm about to walk out the door to take him to his vet appointment. I've got my fingers crossed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest RMarie Posted December 31, 2013 Share Posted December 31, 2013 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Trey Posted December 31, 2013 Share Posted December 31, 2013 (edited) Got back from the vet, and so far good news. She didn't see anything on the film, and she didn't feel anything weird when she examined him other than his shoulder muscle felt a bit swollen. She agreed that since he seems to "warm up" out of the limp and gets better as he moves around that it sounded very much like a soft tissue injury (she said she hadn't met a dog with a bone tumor who was able to "walk off" the pain, and the limp remained consistent throughout the day). She thinks he probably just tore/pulled a muscle and the limping is probably getting a little more pronounced because he isn't resting it properly (absolutely true - he's been enthusiastic about his walks and has not been taking it easy). He did sort of take a tumble both up and down the stairs at Chistmas (stairs are his Waterloo - he just can't master them, panics and tries to just sort of jump up and down them, even when I'm walking next to him to help guide him), but he seemed fine a day or two after it, and it wasn't until Saturday that he started limping so I didn't make the immediate connection. But he was really frisky and playful Friday night, so maybe he made a minor injury worse. So he's on anti-infammatories for the next week or two, and he's been instructed to rest for the next week or two (which will be the hard part. He gets restless/crabby when he doesn't get the energy release of a good walk). If he's not better by then, they will take another set of x-rays and take another look. She did mention that she was well-aware of the osteo rates with greyhounds, and she was happy to hear of grey owners who are vigilant about limps! Thanks for all the crossed fingers, everyone. Hopefully this is all it is. Edited December 31, 2013 by Trey Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest mrs Posted December 31, 2013 Share Posted December 31, 2013 I'm happy your news was good and hope the anti-inflammatories do their job. Get some rest Trey!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Trey Posted January 1, 2014 Share Posted January 1, 2014 Thank you! I hope things go well with Smitty's x-ray on Thursday! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
juliemac Posted January 1, 2014 Share Posted January 1, 2014 I'm so glad t hear about Trey's diagnosis! I'm guessing you were informed, but it may take a couple days for the NSAID levels to build up enough in Trey's system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Trey Posted January 2, 2014 Share Posted January 2, 2014 I'm so glad t hear about Trey's diagnosis! I'm guessing you were informed, but it may take a couple days for the NSAID levels to build up enough in Trey's system. The vet didn't specifically say so, but since they said to keep him on them for 1-2 weeks, I figured it might take a while. But they've already started working their magic - I gave him his first dose after I brought him home from the vet and then went back to work, came home and he already wasn't showing the same stiffness on his walk. And ever since we started him on the meds no more limping in the morning! So he's doing very well so far. But I'm still a bad greyhound mom because I had him at the vet on new year's eve day and I totally forgot to ask about something to give him for the fireworks that evening. They absolutely terrify him and he spent New Year's Eve hiding in the closet, as is his holiday tradition. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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