limping dog :(

Ooohhh Poor pup! I sure hope everything works out for you guys. Hopefully it is nothing--maybe just something caught deep within her paw that needs to work itself out. Or something that fixes itself.
Don't blame yourself---you eased her into the sport. Something unforseen happened along the way.
Best of luck--let us know what happens!

Awww.... poor puppy! Always seems to hurt me as much as them when I see my dog limping. Like Heather said, hopefully it's nothing too serious. I know I had tried doing the running thing with my dog... aside from the fact that he's bad at running because he gets so distracted by EVERYTHING, after a while he also gets a little gimpy. Doctor said it was most likely just a little bit of arthritis creeping in, but nothing to worry about since the symptoms went away shortly after stopping running. So now, my dog gets excited to see me going for a run, because he knows he gets a nice long post-run cool-down walk!

I hope the x-rays tomorrow go well!!! And don't blame yourself -- it really does sound like you went about doing it the right way.

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Sorry to hear about the pooch. Our Golden Retriever had a partial tear in his ACL a number of years ago and we all had to sleep downstairs with him for about 2 months before he could manage going upstairs by himself. We still have to take it easy with him though. Luckily he didn't require surgery Hope all goes well with you pup tomorrow.

-Frank

From one puppy to another. "Wimper...Whine......Hmmm...Hmmm...Hmmm!!" Sad puppy eyes

Oohhh--what a cute pup tupuppy!

awww poor thing, hope all goes well... and its cheap!!

Jamie

back left leg. she can put weight on it, but would rather not. she's not complaining, just hobbling.

we bring her in for xrays at 9:30am tomorrow. we may just hear that she's getting arthritic. i swear she has cataracts already. she's only 5!

that may be what it is. if i press on her joints or bones, she doesn't nip at me, so i doubt highly its a fracture of some sort. she can get up and down the stairs, and down the back steps to the backyard to do her business, but she's being VERY careful about it.

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thanks for the thoughts. she's practically hopping around like a bunny rabbit, which is sad since she's a 100 lb chessie. she just had a hip xray a few years ago, and every looked fine, so i'm pretty sure its not that. they aren't sure if they'll have to sedate her or not...but i'm guessing they will. she's so big and is nervous when at the vets.

she's such a stoic dog. its hard to tell if she's in pain. should we be giving her something? i know NOT nsaids, but aspirin? tylenol? peanut butter?

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My pit bull, gypsy, will has run until she pulled a muscle. If you don't think it's a bone I would just let her rest for 5-6 weeks. When I mean rest I mean no going outside except to potty and on a leash. It can be tough but it takes about that long for the muscle to heal, and keep her inactive inside. Pits are the exact same way. THey will run all out and not let you know they are hurt, and have no problem running all out again even though they are in excrutiating pain. That's what happens when you are dealing with high drive dogs, you just need to pay attention to them even more closely than the average lap dog. Not saying my cuddly little pitty's don't make some great lap warmers and bed warmers for that matter. Hope you doggie is okay, send my condolences.

Also, on a side note you want to limit pain killers in any dog that is injury related. Look at it this way, you give the dog a pain killer. It doesn't know that is what you did, so it thinks it is better and runs or plays on it too hard, thus keeping it injured longer. If you do give pain medicine think about cutting in half the dosage prescribed, just enough to take the edge off w/o interefering as much in the dog's instinct to pain.

My pups send hugs! They hope your pooch is feeling better. I am very sympathetic because I nearly killed one of my dogs running her the first day I had her...They are so much fun to take along, and they love it...but they just don't know any better than to keep going until they can't go any more....

Jennifer (and Misty and Sweetie)

she's on a natural choice blend w/ gluc/chond mixed in. tempted to give her some of the gluc/chond/msm i'm taking (again, w/ some peanut butter!), but i'll check w/ the vet this morning before doing that. she's walking a bit better today, which is a relief. thanks again for all your thoughts and advice. will post an update when we get her back this afternoon.

good point. she's treating herself very gingerly at the moment, which is a good. she's not high drive at all, just high pain tolerance and very stoic. she LOVES running with me, but she's better build for miles and miles of quiet hiking (which is also what she's most used to). with enough water, she'd hike for days.

well, she IS single. she used to play with a cocker spaniel named jenkins, but things got weird when she grew to four times his size she is, um, well, how to put it...she's lacking of certain female characteristics. (sorry, greta!). he should know, she's bossy and all the treats are HERS!

vet thought it was acl...so gold stars to all who thought so! she's still there, sedated and getting xrays. she's also gained 8 lbs in the last 6 months. i'm guessing most of that came on while we've been easy on her with the bad leg. frustrating, since i wanted to run with her to help her drop some of her padding.

she seemed to be putting more weight on that leg today, and was able to get in and out of the back of the car with just a little help. hopefully that's a good sign that its just a partial tear and not a full. if its a full, our tax refund will be going towards surgery (about $1500).

Otis had a really bad partial tear, but like I mentioned it was a partial tear and really taking it easy on him for 2 months allowed him to heal. It was a ton of effort to keep him from playing too much - we had to let each dog outside one at a time to keep them from running around. Even 3 years later, we still take it easier on him that I'm sure he would like, but it's for his good - besides, I don't want to spend 2 months sleeping in a sleeping bag on the living room floor again when I could be sleeping upstairs in a nice bed I would think that it's promising if she's already putting weight on it so soon. Otis could hardly walk or lay down for 3 days. Fingers are crossed for a good X-Ray

-Frank

thanks. ours are crossed too.

love the name otis. we have a cat named otto.

Frank - I'm glad to hear that I'm not the only person who has spent significant time NOT sleeping in my bed just because the dog couldn't make it upstairs....  my friends to this day don't let me forget about that.

Sounds like they'd get along fine. He's neutered (of course), he just likes the ladies. And he doesn't like treats, just lovin'.

Super funny thing... We signed the boys up for the Burger King Kids Club so that they get a cheeseburger and fries every year for their birthday. We signed Otis up as Otto and Milo goes by Miles Good grief, I sound like one of those crazy pet people...

-Frank