- Joined
- Jul 7, 2019
- Messages
- 9
I've been on a journey with my pup and was hoping to get some feedback and answers from the professionals. Throughout this whole process I have been to many vets and taken different avenues to try and help my dog. This has left me at the end of my resources with a dog that is still injured, and I have no idea what to do or where to turn next.
Since this has been a process over several months, I thought I would try to include the story as is relevant.
My dog went to doggie daycare at 12 weeks old 3 days a week after I'm sure being over-vaccinated. She's a high drive dog, and I believe that the atmosphere at her daycare really led to her being overly active and having pretty poor postural stability and control. She injured her front limb on two different occasions (never got a true diagnosis) which did resolve after a few days to a week each time.
As the seasons changed and she went through her first estrus at 8 months, she got incredibly itchy and started to have hot spots on her hips. I did a lot of research and changed her from kibble to raw food over the next two months. About a month after switching, she became very ill (lethargic, limping, progressive weakness, lack of energy, to not eating or drinking all combined with a very terrible diarrhea) That lasted for 3-4 weeks of gradual decline in which we saw 4 different vets. She was given an antibiotic for her stomach because of the diarrhea. She was told she had sarcoidosis bacteria causing myositis,, until finally she was diagnosed with Lyme or some other tick borne disease and given doxycycline, another antibiotic for her stomach, and anti-inflammatories. When she was starting to get sick in the middle of this whole process, she jumped on my bed, laid down, then jumped back up crying and holding her leg up. As she got more and more sick, that moment seemed the least of my concerns.
After treatment started for tick borne illness, her personality, behavior, and energy rapidly improved (she was on medication for 1 week). She seemed to recover over the next few weeks. I think I probably let her get back to her "fun" puppy activities too rapidly because I was just so thankful she was okay.
I started a conditioning program for her to try and help her come back which started very gentle, but it became apparent that she was deweighting her right hind leg (the leg that she had been holding up when she was ill). In addition, after a craniosacral therapy session, she tweaked the leg somehow when visiting my parents dogs. This was 3-4 weeks ago. Over that time, her limp has gotten progressively worse to now she will not put any weight on the limb when she is standing, and is compensating a lot to barely touch it down when she is walking. As her limp became more noticeable I continued to scale back on her activity. I started with just carrying her up and down the stairs and avoiding any jumping and running. To now we are not taking our daily walks but instead just going to sit places to get out and about. Her limp seemed to get worse as the activity lessened.
I'll include some videos of her limp from the past two months, but really I am hoping for any advice on where to go. I've been bounced around so much that financially I am in a bind and my sweet girl is still limping so much. She's 14 months now and still growing, so I am very worried about long term consequences of her limping and apparent injury. The first video is at our first conditioning session. The second is after a craniosacral treatment and a tweak at my parent's house. The third is after 3-4 weeks of rest and is the most recent.
Also to include is that I am a people physical therapist and have been trying to help her in any ways I know how through this process also. I haven't been able to determine the location of her pain at this point.
Sorry for the long post, but I'm hoping anyone has advice or feedback of where to go from here or what I might do to help her. I also hear Dr. Torraca is very experienced and might have some feedback also. Thank you!
Nicki Leach
Since this has been a process over several months, I thought I would try to include the story as is relevant.
My dog went to doggie daycare at 12 weeks old 3 days a week after I'm sure being over-vaccinated. She's a high drive dog, and I believe that the atmosphere at her daycare really led to her being overly active and having pretty poor postural stability and control. She injured her front limb on two different occasions (never got a true diagnosis) which did resolve after a few days to a week each time.
As the seasons changed and she went through her first estrus at 8 months, she got incredibly itchy and started to have hot spots on her hips. I did a lot of research and changed her from kibble to raw food over the next two months. About a month after switching, she became very ill (lethargic, limping, progressive weakness, lack of energy, to not eating or drinking all combined with a very terrible diarrhea) That lasted for 3-4 weeks of gradual decline in which we saw 4 different vets. She was given an antibiotic for her stomach because of the diarrhea. She was told she had sarcoidosis bacteria causing myositis,, until finally she was diagnosed with Lyme or some other tick borne disease and given doxycycline, another antibiotic for her stomach, and anti-inflammatories. When she was starting to get sick in the middle of this whole process, she jumped on my bed, laid down, then jumped back up crying and holding her leg up. As she got more and more sick, that moment seemed the least of my concerns.
After treatment started for tick borne illness, her personality, behavior, and energy rapidly improved (she was on medication for 1 week). She seemed to recover over the next few weeks. I think I probably let her get back to her "fun" puppy activities too rapidly because I was just so thankful she was okay.
I started a conditioning program for her to try and help her come back which started very gentle, but it became apparent that she was deweighting her right hind leg (the leg that she had been holding up when she was ill). In addition, after a craniosacral therapy session, she tweaked the leg somehow when visiting my parents dogs. This was 3-4 weeks ago. Over that time, her limp has gotten progressively worse to now she will not put any weight on the limb when she is standing, and is compensating a lot to barely touch it down when she is walking. As her limp became more noticeable I continued to scale back on her activity. I started with just carrying her up and down the stairs and avoiding any jumping and running. To now we are not taking our daily walks but instead just going to sit places to get out and about. Her limp seemed to get worse as the activity lessened.
I'll include some videos of her limp from the past two months, but really I am hoping for any advice on where to go. I've been bounced around so much that financially I am in a bind and my sweet girl is still limping so much. She's 14 months now and still growing, so I am very worried about long term consequences of her limping and apparent injury. The first video is at our first conditioning session. The second is after a craniosacral treatment and a tweak at my parent's house. The third is after 3-4 weeks of rest and is the most recent.
Also to include is that I am a people physical therapist and have been trying to help her in any ways I know how through this process also. I haven't been able to determine the location of her pain at this point.
Sorry for the long post, but I'm hoping anyone has advice or feedback of where to go from here or what I might do to help her. I also hear Dr. Torraca is very experienced and might have some feedback also. Thank you!
Nicki Leach
