Therapy For Hip Dysplasia (Hd)

[divyd]

Hello all,

My two year old New Zealand Huntaway (Bonnie), spent much of her life with Panosteitis.

It seemed to have disappeared, but her left rear leg has been giving trouble. We could see that she was in pain and reluctant to put much weight on the leg. She would often hold it up and limp, and when standing stationery, she would be off balance. I took her to our local vet who did an x-ray and said that she has early signs of HD. I'm so sad to hear this given she is so young and loves to run around with her crazy Greyhound brother, but cannot due to the amount of pain she is in.

I have a few ideas to help reduce the pain for her and would LOVE some feedback on this.

1) Bowen's massage, acupuncture, and/or chiropractic adjustments. What are your experiences with these forms of therapy? What/who do you recommend? I have read in an old forum about a woman who does acupuncture and chiro from her home in Shelley, WA. But I cannot seem to find her details to make an enquiry.

2) Bonnie has usually been on a diet of Barf and Nutro Natural Dog Biscuits. I found that neither had much nutritional content to accommodate for healthy joints (e.g. Omega 3 and 6, glucosamine, and Chondroitin). I found that Canidae large breed kibble had a pretty good amount of these, and were also grain free (it is my understanding that wheat/corn were difficult for dogs to digest and can cause inflammation in joints thereby exacerbating existing joint problems). Seeing as Bonnie loves Barf, the days she would get it, I could just supplement with Sasha's Blend Joint Health Powder or 4cyte. Does anyone have any recommendations regarding dog food for HD?

3) My vet has recommended Bonnie go on Cartrophen and she will start her first course of weekly injections very shortly. I have my reservations about having my young dog on medication like this for the rest of her life. Has anyone used Catrophen for their dogs, and what were your experiences?

Sorry for such a long post. My animals are my babies and I just want to ensure they are happy and healthy.

[denali]

Hi Divyd,

And welcome :)

Ok, so this could be slightly long. But I will give you a bit of background. henry is my 6.5yo Cavalier, he has a terrible back and had suspected HD also. He was a rescue from an elderly lady who passed away, and i got him at the age of 5, severely overweight and not active at all, wouldn't jump, yelped when you touched his back end etc..

He was xrayed at 3yo with slight arthritic hips, but no HD as such. But i will answer your questions anyway as i think it may help :)

1.) Yes- to the above. I have a vet who does all three as needed. The chiropractic definitely helps. Well all three help to be honest!

He gets it on an as needed basis, at the start it was very frequent, now its usually once every 6-10 weeks.

Not sure of any in your area though. Something else to consider is hydrotherapy, to build up the supporting muscles without the stress on the joints.

And maybe contact sas at The balanced canine in sydney to see if taping could be helpful: http://www.balanced-canine.com

https://www.facebook...erapies?fref=ts

And obviously making sure your dog is kept as lean as possible will help too.

2.) Yes, Henry is on a fully raw diet (only biscuits occasionally in a kong or similar but barely any of his diet is dry food.)

I supplement him with turmeric Golden paste (which is anti inflammatory), salmon oil and coconut oil alternated (fish oil isn't necessary if your dog is fed grass fed meat, but not all of his is, so i just add it.), eggs, canned and fresh sardines, and an MSM Glucosamine and Chondroitin supplement. I also give him green lipped muscles and shark cartilage as treats.

This is the glucosamine i use : http://www.ebay.com....=item23407b7e86

When he has a flare up, we give him Boswellia complex (on advice from my chiropractic vet) and this seems to help. He isn't needing any drugs at the moment, but was on a NSAID prior to all the supplements and i would put him back on them if its needed.

3.) He was given a course of cartrophen, with no improvement at all. So this is not something i have continued with.

I also do conditioning exercises with him.

With the above, he is back to running around, doesn't yelp and is much more energetic :)

At the beach on the weekend!

Edited September 24, 2015 by denali

[Podengo]

Have you considered hydrotherapy for Bonnie? Looks like there are a few rehab places in WA

Active Pet rehab

Ocean Reef vet clinic

[Mim]

Deb Nook is a vet who does chiro/acupuncture on her regular visits to Perth. My dogs see her when they need to (in fact two are going this weekend). You can contact her on her email debnook@we​stnet.com.a​u but might need to wait for an appointment as she is very popular and only comes to Perth every 6 weeks or so.

[YippeeGirl]

One of ours has hip dysplasia. She was x-rayed at 12 months so she could go through breed survey. Unfortunately, we got the news that she had hip dyplasia, and it was really quite astonishing to see how bad her hips were at such a young age.

She's four now, and fortunately has never shown any signs of pain or even discomfort. Obviously, there's always the possibility that she will start to show symptoms as she ages.

Because she's not showing any pain we don't have her on any pain relief. However, we do have her on a couple of different supplements to try and keep her happy and healthy for as long as possible.

At the moment she's getting a couple of green-lipped mussel capsules a day, as well as a twice daily dose of Joint Guard. She also gets coconut oil to keep her coat shiny, and will occasionally get a treat of shark cartilage. We feed her a premium grain-free dog kibble (Wellness Core Original Formula) mixed with raw meat, green tripe, and the occasional meaty bone.

We do take her to the chiropractor. Not as often as when she was being worked hard for shows, but it's still every couple of months. I'm not really sure how much it helps, but it doesn't seem to cause any harm either.

For exercise, she goes swimming in the indoor pool at Kepala Pet Resort once a week. This is around 20-30 minutes of constant swimming. We did try hydrotherapy with her, but it was fairly expensive when all she did was walk at a snail's pace and wail the whole time.

I've always read that it's important to build up the muscles in the hind end for dogs with dysplasia as this will help support the hip. Therefore, we try to keep Nike as fit as we can, without running her into the ground. I suppose though, that this becomes more difficult when the dog is in pain. We have a lot of hills where I live, and so when the weather warms up, she gets a lot of long, gentle walks around my suburb. We also try not to do anything too concussive to her joints like jogging on hard surfaces.

It's such a shame to read about a dog so young being in pain. I really count my blessings each pain free day we have with Nike, because I know there's no guarantee that they will continue

[ness]

You could see if you could get into see Primal Paws while she is over in Perth.

http://www.primalpaws.com/

She is over there at the moment until the 28th.

[sas]

Jamie @ Primal Paws travels regularly and would definately be able to assist in terms of an assessment and then an exercise program.

I have a CHD client that I tape and it assists. I'm working with RockTape at the moment to put together photographic and text instructions for canine taping so people can do the basics themselves.

[Staffyluv]

I have a rescue boy (amstaff) who has HD (worse in his right hip). He is 4 years old now and we found out about his hips a couple of years ago - he kept pulling up lame and limping all the time.

We feed raw, with a bit of kibble. We supplement with Blackmores Osteo Chews (can't remember the name of them exactly).

He has cartrophen every 6 months and it does make a difference for him.

We also see a chiropractor every 4-6 weeks (depending on how he goes).

I keep his weight on the lighter side and exercise him daily.

The chiro is probably where I notice the biggest difference in his movement - she keeps him in alignment and it seems to make a big difference to how he carries himself.

Good luck with your pup.

[divyd]

Wow! Thank you everyone for your advise. I'm so happy to have found support for Bonnie!

Sas, I've never heard of taping for pooches. Do you have a website where I can find out more about this?

YippeeGirl, I've looked into Wellness Core kibble and am certainly keen on getting Bonnie onto that!

I'm going to make golden paste ASAP and will stock up on some sardines, shark cartilage and gl muscles for treats :) But overall, it seems chiro might be the way to go and swimming/hydrotherapy. I go to the chiro myself and think it is amazing so makes sense that dogs need to be realigned too.

[Taliecat]

I love the idea of taping for dogs, it helped me tremendously when I first hurt my back, and it just seems so logical to extend it to our canine companions!

[skip]

Sorry to hear your dog has bad hips. It't heartbreaking.

My kelpie was going really well in agility and herding with no problems. At 3 she was limping one day after swimming so to the vets. Misdiagnosed at first as a pulled CL or knee problem she started the cartrophen injections. But the series of injections were weekly, a fortnight, a month,then 3 and now she is finished (with no need of it now).

Not sure of the diagnosis I took her elsewhere for xrays. Her hips ends are already worn off and looks pretty bad considering she stills moves so well.bit of a shock.

My vet suggested I give the daily dose of glucosamine (500) and chondrotin (400). Lucky blooms the chemist make this. Chondroitin is to build cartilage before that left hip wears it away further.

My dog was very muscular and you need to keep this so I went with the physio. Exercise can be dedremental but physio builds core muscles to keep joints in place. See this month's Dogs NSW mag cause has a article on my physio.

Note there is a tip in this article about swimming. I thought it could be OK but was concerned as legs are still moving. Physio says swimming is good for cardiovascular fitness but wading will build muscle and this makes sense. Battery going so have to post more later maybe.

[sas]

Wow! Thank you everyone for your advise. I'm so happy to have found support for Bonnie!

Sas, I've never heard of taping for pooches. Do you have a website where I can find out more about this?

YippeeGirl, I've looked into Wellness Core kibble and am certainly keen on getting Bonnie onto that!

I'm going to make golden paste ASAP and will stock up on some sardines, shark cartilage and gl muscles for treats :) But overall, it seems chiro might be the way to go and swimming/hydrotherapy. I go to the chiro myself and think it is amazing so makes sense that dogs need to be realigned too.

Hi, mm no not really, I don't really know other people who do it in Australia. I'm working with the Rocktape folk to put together some info for the canine community.