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About a week ago Orion my Great Dane/Black Lab mix stopped getting up on the bed at night. At first I thought that a couple of the other guys had gotten there first and he felt that there was not enough room for him. I also noticed that he was using the canine cooler bed that I'd bought for Nikki but he never used it.
Then on Sat I realized that he was favoring his right rear leg just a bit. Not keeping it off the floor completely but not distributing his weight evenly on both legs. Took him to the vet this morning, withheld food so that they could sedate for x-rays if the SNAP test came back negative for Lyme's.
Both his hip and knee on that leg are not in good shape. Dr. H said that he probably was not a good candidate for corrective surgeries since they would have to be done consecutively, not concurrently and at his age of 10 or maybe more it would be a very slow recovery from each one. I can take him to the vet school at VT to be seen by a specialist but it's very likely I'd get the same opinion there.
So we'll go with Deramaxx for pain and inflammation and I just made an appointment for the acupuncture/holistic vet to come for a treatment on Tuesday.
Well my vet, um I mean my MD, just put me on Naproxsyn for my bad knee so we have some aches in common and I'll just give him a hand getting into bed at night. Let him get up first then the other dogs.
I wish you and Orion all the best.
I lost my Dane "Zeus" last year at 8 years of age. Started the same way.
Just be there to love and hold him when he asks for it.
Poor baby! Sorry both of you are suffering. My GD that lived to 12 yrs (amazing to me!), eventually lost bowel control due to spinal degeneration. She would walk around the house dropping little hard balls and didn't seem to know she was doing it. As it was hard and not messy, I just picked them up. When she finally couldn't walk right, I knew it was time. They don't last long enough, do they?
Not a Great Dane, but a plott hound .... My baby is just a year old and already his hips are popping. It doesn't bother him, so at this moment I'm not treating it. In the future we will give him joint supplements and depending on how bad it becomes, we will consider surgery. At this time we don't even know why they are popping. Ideas??
I am sorry to hear about your babies, Zugor and Nevar. It's never easy to see one you love get old.
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