front leg limp..

W

Waffle23

Forums Novice
So about a year ago my sheltie started limping on one of her legs. We've taken her to the vet three times over it, and the first time they prescribed rest, which didn't work, and then an anti inflammatory, which actually did help temporarily but I still wanted to know the cause. They kept her all day, examined her, xrayed her and had her walk around. The problem is that the limp kind of comes and goes. It's worse if she's been lying down. But they found nothing. She's not even in any pain. She's fine when she runs, and like I said, some days it's there and others it's not. It's been a year and it has never gotten worse or better. I've started giving her glucosamine and hopefully that helps.

Has anyone had this with their sheltie before? The vet was kinda stumped. I at first thought she might have injured it in her agility class and haven't taken her back.
 
This sounds a lot like what I went thru with Lexi. But Lexi was only about a year old. It was eventually diagnosed as elbow displacia and she had surgery. She has been fine since. I don't run her on contact obstacles, but she does jumps and weaves just fine!!
 
It sounds very, very much like elbow dysplasia. I went through something similar with my male who has ED. It took quite some time for a diagnosis.

ED generally does not show up on x-rays until there is arthritic change, and even then it may not show. This is because the change may be inside the joint where xrays can't get to. I suggest you go to an orthopaedic vet, or sent the xrays to an ortho vet and get a firm diagnosis.
 
Whenever one of my dogs has a persistent limp, I test for Lyme disease. In every case, it's been positive. Barkley developed a limp as a six-month old puppy that we xrayed, saw specialists for, and finally tested for Lyme. That was it, and a round of doxycycline solved it in 24 hours. He still has flare-ups now at age 8 and whenever I see any gimpiness, he goes on the doxy.

It may not be that since your pup has had it for so long, but it's worth having the test done.
 
Same thing with Honey, intermittent limp. We actually just got back from the vet...once again. And once again, there's nothing specifically wrong. No restriction in leg or head movement. No obvious points of swelling...

Can't find anything wrong, we left with a few hundred in a medicines and supplements, and instructions to give her another week of restricted movement.

Since this is ongoing though, we bought a small stock tank that will be easy to move to the basement so we can do hydrotherapy year round. From what I've been reading, whether it's arthritis, or elbow or tendon injuries or a specific condition, building up the muscles is the best early treatment...

Took a while to find the tank...and she was not very happy while doing the exercise, but hopefully it'll give us an improvement and be worth the time.

On a side note, there's a sheltie down the street now, a rehome from when it's first owners got to elderly to care for it, and her owner reports the same issue in the cold weather. Dog gets up, limps a bit, but after a while it goes away.
 
Thanks so much for the suggestions. It was getting frustrating because nothing on her seems sore, and every time I took her to the vet, of course she wouldnt limp. I bring her to work with me every day and even my coworkers notice someday it's there more and others it's not. So it's definitely not in our heads!

My vet's (and my husband's and my) main worry was that it was bone cancer. But nothing showed in the x ray and when her took her in for her shots six months later he said if that's what it was she'd be dead already *shudder*. He never mentioned elbow dysplasia or Lyme disease, so I was definitely bring those up at her next appointment. She's going to be 4 this month.
 
Watson has a little bit of a limp in one back leg. He has mild HD but the limp mechanically looks like it's origin is his knee. I asked the vet about it last time we were up. He has some ligament instability that she thinks he tweaks sometimes running around with the cats.

It usually isn't too bad I can see how crazy activity affects it. It's also worse in the cold.. this last winter he hopped around quite a bit more. We have a novox prescription to give as needed when he really starts to favor it a lot. She wasn't concerned enough to want to sedate him for x-rays at this point but I just keep an eye on it.
 
Max is limpy. Vet says it's arthritis. He gets a 1/2 a Deramaxx and 1/4 Tramadol every evening with his dinner. Seems to help. He also get a laser therapy treatment about once per month.
 
Something similar happened with our pup at around 1 year of age to his back hind legs. Vet couldn't find anything wrong with his xrays, took tons of anti-inflammatory and pain meds. It helped a little on and off. We took him to see the specialist (Orthopedics). He diagnosed the condition within 2 min of looking at x-ray and my pup had Leggs Calves Perthes disease.

I am not saying your pup has the same disease (I highly doubt it) but it seems something is off and it won't hurt to go see a specialist. They can usually tell right away.
 
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