Why is my dog limping?

My 11-month-old Great Pyrenees has started limping on his right front foot pretty badly. I checked his foot pad and there were no punctures, and I felt up and down his leg and he didn’t act like I was paining him by doing it.

He stays outside at night with my Dobie to guard our chickens, and he spends a good deal of time running and barking at things. He doesn’t have to (he and my Dobie both have beds in the barn) be up all night, but he still does. Could he just have sprained something?

He’s been limping for about four days, and I would take him to the local vet, but the vet doesn’t have an x-ray machine so I would have to take him to the city, so I thought that I could wait it out and see if he stopped.

He has had no injuries, he’s given a proper diet (Diamond Naturals Adult Chicken and Rice supplemented with chicken and eggs), and it’s really worrying me because I love him very much. What do you think is wrong?

I’m in a remote area of East TN, but my local vet has an xray. I’m startled that you say your vet doesn’t have one. Even without an xray, a vet can palpate the leg better than you can and can tell a lot that you will miss because pyrs are stoic and tend to not show pain to their owners. The vet is trained to recognize subtle indications of pain that we tend to miss.

My male once stepped on a velvet ant (wingless wasp) and couldn’t walk on his foreleg for about a day. His distress was so strong, I rushed him to the vet who verified there was no apparent injury and gave me an Nsaid pain medication for him. We had to guess what had hurt him as there were no signs of injury, and no indication that an xray would help diagnose him.

You did a good job of checking him, but the vet may still recognize a pain response you missed. Did you check between the digits? If not, do that now.

He could have stomped on a rock and have a bad bruise.
If your vet has recommended pain medicine for you, try it for a day.
If not, call and ask your vet if s/he would recommend some pain med or would s/he prefer to see the dog. Good country vets know to not rush farmers in for visits just to make money.

My main concern is that the dog is still limping after 4 days. If it’s not improving and he was mine, we’d go to the vet today.

You feed your pyr the same kibble I feed. It’s a good one.

I suspect a bad bruise or a bite. A bite from a velvet ant you may not be able to see. The dog could also have burrs between digits and be limping from that, so as I said, if you haven’t checked there, do so now.

Also I invite you to join one of Yahoo’s good pyr groups. You get better answers from a group dedicated to pyrs. The general public at YA doesn’t know pyrs enough to guide you, as is evidenced by some of the replies you’ve gotten…. including at least one that told you to check the dog’s hips… which have nothing to do with pain in a FOREleg -!-

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