If your pet is unwell, please seek veterinary attention. The information provided here is not intended to be used as a substitute for going to the vet. Have something to add? Comments (if open) will appear within 24 hours.īy Andrew Spanner BVSc(Hons) MVetStud, a vet in Adelaide, Australia. NOTE: comments are now closed, but you should be able to find answers to all the common questions in the previous replies Can you spot the difference and find the crack? Leave me a comment if it’s driving you crazy. It was almost our last image in a long series, and thanks to the diagnosis the dog went on to make a full recovery. The x-rays above are a craniocaudal view of the shoulders of a dog, an exceedingly difficult area to do well. If a thorough radiographic study fails to identify any cause of the lameness, then 99 times out of 100 the dog will get better with rest and anti-inflammatories. The advantage of xrays in most cases is that they neatly separate the dogs that need intervention from the dogs that can be managed conservatively. Until dogs learn to talk, we’re going to need to use tests like these to know which dogs need help. For example, muscle tears don’t show up on x-ray and that’s fine. The most common cause of both sorts of fractures is when puppies are dropped or fall from furniture. Greenstick fractures are just like the name suggests- cracked but not fully broken, and heal very well if supported. The small piece of bone that’s now fixed down was pulled off by the force of the patellar tendon. The picture shows the repair of a tibial crest avulsion in the knee, a sort of growth plate fracture. Growth plates are the dark bands you see in puppy xrays where new bone is forming, and are natural weak spots. Fractureįractures in growing dogs are a lot like breaks in children. See also the common causes of limping discussed later and the cost of X-rays.

All these problems need to be identified and treated quickly in growing dogs.

If a puppy starts limping, you may need to act fast to prevent a lifetime of problems. Visit this page to see which problems happen in the front or back legs and how to tell which leg is sore. The list below is sorted into ‘puppy’, ‘adult’ and ‘common’ problems. I’ve gone back through our records, found the top 20 with pictures. By knowing the leg problems that dogs get you have a better chance of preventing some, identifying others and taking them all seriously. This isn’t just a catalog of limping dogs.

Lame dog hut