Hip dysplasia in young dog - Page 1

Hello, I´m sure some of you have had the circumstance in which you find out that your GSD has hip dysplasia.  I have a 3 year old female who came out as having moderate hip dysplasia.  It was hard, but I know it´s all part of owning a gsd.  I´m wondering if there are some suggestions as to taking care of her, maybe there´s supplements that could help her with coping with HD later on????  She´s perfectly normal right now, but I´m wonderfing if I can start doing something right now.  I plan to talk to my vet as well, but I hope I can hear from some of you who have gone through this experience before.  Thank you so much!
 

thanks !!

Evangelina,

  Ruby passed this along to other offspring too. Along with auto immune disorder. It's a shame to continue breeding's with so many offspring having many problems.


Nicco

THE most important thing you can do for your dog is keep her lean. Also do not let her jump into and out of vehicles. Exercise should be moderate and only as tolerated. She may have poor hips and NEVER show it. On the other hand, many dogs whose hips are initially just fine end up in real trouble as they age. So a diagnosis of dysplasia (I am assuming you have OFA or other organizations x-ray results?) is not necessarily the worst thing that could happen. To some extent, from here on out it is all about what you do with her. There is, for what it is worth, no real studies that prove that any supplement will help, including glucosamine or chondroitin sulfate. So a proper diet, and again, keeping her lean is the best advice I can give. Use common sense in exercising her.

Good luck.

Sorry to hear the HD with your dog.  It is important to watch her weight ensuring she is lean and trim.  Best exercises would be swimming to build up muscles to support the joint.  However try to avoid too much jumping especially on hard surfaces.  I suppose joint supplements can help too.

I know EXACTLY how you feel,

My beautiful Phanny (Phantom) had an OFA prelim of Good,  When she turned two I sent in the finals.  You can imagine my shock to see Mild Displastic.  I took her to the Humane Society totally swanky animal hospital and got her spayed.  I was a very easy surgery and she stayed there one or two days with lots of attention.  When I picked her up, she was in the office hanging out with the staff.

The good thing was that I could show the official certificate to my X2B who was contesting custody.  Suddenly, he never brought it up again.  That was at least a itty bitty silver lining.

Then, I had to figure out what to do.  Could I mitigate some of this nightmare.  I knew from reading that many dogs never show symptoms.  I wanted Phanny to be one of those.  She was such a monster athlete, never a lame day.

Through a long process, I came up with various things.  I had been told about cosequin, and so I found something that had the same ingredients plus some natural anti-inflammatories.

  A local vet sold this for 45.00 for a bottle of 90 chewable tablets.  I did a bit of searching, and I got whole foods to special order it with a case discount for about 18.00 for the same size bottle.  That ended and I searched some more and got it on eBay for 21.00.  That was about three years ago.

Each tablet has 500 mg of glucosamine - most of the other pet things are pathetic not enough to do anything,

Here's vitacost-I order stuff like viatmins and dog stuff and they usually are pretty cheap and shipping is really low-it is now 23.01
www.vitacost.com/Ark-Naturals-Joint-Rescue  also there are 14 reviews to read 5 out of 5 stars.

Ingredients
Glucosamine sulfate (500 mg), chondritin sulfate (50 mg), boswellin extract, curcumin extract, vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin E, pantothenic acid, magnesium, manganese, copper, selenium, methionine, and natural dried chicken.

Also, I switched my dogs to raw feeding and made sure she got a lot of cartilege to eat.  That was good for many years of rocketing around fun. I had another dog who was 5 years older than her and when he got old and his back injury started problems more than Joint Rescue could handle I added Deramaxx (prescription needed)   This was the absolute cheapest price that I cout find.  I would have gone broke buying it from the vet.
www.discountpetdrugs.com/de100mg90cht.html

Shadow was a very large dog and I started with a 1/4 tablet and worked my way up to 1 tabet per day.  So, when Phanny got old, I started her on Deramaxx 1/4 tablet and worked my way up to 1 tablet.  Neither dog had any side effects and it really worked.  Shadow was thirteen and Phanny was 11 1/2  at death (Phanny got osteosarcoma in her pelvic bone).

Phanny had a very full active life, the cancer got her before her hips got bad.

I am sure that many more knowledgeable people than I will have some advice for you.

Good luck,

Michele

 

My handsome Beckett also came back with moderate dysplasia & subluxation of his right hip. And the vet's positioning was near perfect, so I really couldn't blame the image, darn it! We now keep him very lean, try to keep him pretty active, but no more jumping, at least as much as we can limit him. He is a natural athlete, & everything he does is full-on, never half way. It just breaks my heart, still. He is just perfect in every other way, & we love him so much. We had such plans for our boy....oh well. He was 3 also. I hope your dog stays sound, it is truly disheartening. jackie harris

my hubby's dog just turned 11 yrs last month.  we've known that he's dysplastic since he was 10 months.  his films were so bad that we didn't even try to send them in.  his left hip looked like a ball sitting on a plate.  extremely flat/shallow socket.  when he was younger, we were very careful to keep him trim and fit.  good condition goes a long way in holding things together.  now that he is older, it is tough on him to walk very far.  he still goes up and down stairs on his own, but there is no jumping and we do keep his food dish elevated.  i also like the products from k9 power......JOINT STRONG.  it helps to keep him comfortable.  for the most part, he has lead a pretty normal life.  schh was out of the question, but he did some herding for us when he was younger.....ziegenfarm, we do really have a goat farm here.   bad hips are managable if you keep the dog lean and fit.  it is permissible to give a baby aspirin now and then, if they have pain.  just make sure it is plain aspirin and nothing else.  a lot of other pain relievers can kill a dog.  good luck with the dog.  lots of them live long normal lives with care.
pjp

 Thank you all so much for the comments, I have a better idea now about what to do.  She can be so active but now I'll try to keep her more moderated, not so much jumping around  :)   Hey thanks a lot again!