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Old July 7th, 2009, 10:10 AM
Thumpy Thumpy is offline
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Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Innisfil, Ontario
Posts: 14
Is this dog arthritis?

Hello everybody.

I have a female German-Shepherd, she is turning 11 on December the 25th. I'm not sure if she is suffering from osteoarthritis. She hasn't shown all the symptoms listed but I just need to hear some of your ideas. Here are her symptoms:

- She is unable to jump into the car without assistance (Last time she was able to get in was fairly recent, around June the 5th of this year. Even then she had some difficult getting inside, but no assistance was required.) We had not walked her very much that week and a possibility is that she just needs to walk a lot more to get some strength back. There had been some improvements after a good amount of walking.
- Her nails on her back feet have nearly worn off and she bleeds from where her nails are (after walking on pavement). When she walks, she doesn't lift up the back feet very high, and that causes her drag her nails against the pavement.
- Maybe a loss of appetite? She doesn't tend to eat as much as she did, but when we mix meat with her dry food, she eats it.
- She loves to walk, but she gets tired (this is very obvious on a hotter day). On a cloudy day when it's cool, she is able to walk for up to an hour. When she walks though, after about half an hour, she will walk beside us rather than go ahead of us. Sometimes, she will easily trip and fall on her front, sometimes she will just fall on her bottom. I have seen her sprint sometimes, when there is a squirrel or when she's really excited to walk.
- When we got her at the age of six, she had developed several bumps which the vet removed surgically. The most recent bump removed this spring, which was hanging from her belly, meaning it was hanging by the skin on her belly rather than being attached solid.
- At her most recent check up in early spring (before the surgery), the vet had said her bones look good, and she had behaved as such. But like many old dogs she had some kidney problem.
- She is not overweight (this is a good thing).
- She had developed another bump very recently, on her back next to her right hip, this one is still very small, about the diameter of a fingernail.

I don't think this is CDRM, it doesn't look that severe, since her back hips don't appear have much trouble staying up.

I would love to hear some of your thoughts on how to manage her problem (whatever it is). We are giving her one capsule of glucosamine daily, but that doesn't seem to be helping very much.

Thank you
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