I think my dog threw his hip out!

[nancypants]

He is a Golden Retriever that we rescued several months back. When we got him I knew he was not of champion blood but I did ask if his hips were given a good grade by the vet and the owners did say yes, they had. I think that remains to be seen. http://www.mysmiley.net/imgs/smile/animals/animal0019.gif (http://www.allboxingstats.com/)

This morning I called to him and he whipped around to run down the stairs (very quick to obey this sweet guy) and he immediately let out a yelp and a cry of pain. :( Poor baby. He was initially limping (not wanting to use his left hind leg) pretty badly. I massaged it for a while and he started to walk on it but lightly. It looked like maybe it was in spasm a bit. He's walking normally now.

Has anyone here had a dog throw out his back or hip? Did you take him in or did it seem to take care of itself? Was this a fluke thing most likely or do you think it's indicative of a bigger problem?

Thanks for your input!

[Kim in TN]

We have a labrador that all of a sudden one day couldn't walk. Turns out she had hip dysplasia. :(

She ended up having to have a surgery called Femoral Head Ostectomy. They cut the femoral head of the leg bone off and the scar tissue created an artificial hip joint. She is fine now and runs and plays with the other dogs.

I hope your dog doesn't have hip dysplasia. We paid $700 for her surgery. This was a dog we got off of Freecycle! :rolleyes:

It was worth it to us though. She's the sweetest dog we have ever had. :)

[Bee]

My dog,who is a large mutt,did that once when she was younger.It resolved on it's own.We used to take her for long walks but she hasn't been able to do that in the last 2 years because it got to where her back legs would give out and she would have to rest for a long time but it didn't seem to be painful.She was about 15 at that time.She can still do short walks around the fields.She can't run anymore.The vet suggested glucosamine then and we tried it for a while but her system now isn't up to any changes in her diet due to her advanced age and other health issues.

[Sunny]

My pup ran into the end of our hallway wall, and literally twisted her pelvis. She couldn't walk, just yelped and cried. It was SO sad. I took her to the vet. He didn't see anything "broken" on the xrays (expensive ouch!). Of course, that is all they look for. I took her to a chiropractor and he was dismayed that the vet didn't notice how out of shape she was with her twisted pelvis. He adjusted her, and she WALKED out of the office. She went back again a couple days later for a followup adjustment to make sure it was in the right place. I will ALWAYs use the chiro first in things like this. It was much cheaper too. If you find one that does horses, he'll probably be able to do the dog. I was fortunate, our regular chiro had additional training for animals so he would accept small animals by special appt. He also fixed my sister's rabbit that got chased by her Lab. The bunny also dislocated her hips, adn couldn't jump up on her box. He fixed her with 1 simple adjustment too!