what to do. what to do.

i am a 15 year old. i have a 9 month black lab golden retriever mix puppy. best hunting dog that any one in my family has saw. but for the last weeks he has been limping. toke him to the vets today and they said it could be hip dysplasia. i have to bring him back in for x rays tomorrow. the vet said that he will never get better and he will always be in pain of some sort. he said i would have to watch what i do with him like play fetch, long walks, and worst of all i cant hunt him. so i guess my question is do i want him to be in pain or just have him put down. the vet said that if it where that case i would have to decide what happend. so far everything has came out to about $200 which is all coming out of my pocket. but he said i could give him doggy aspirin but i was just if any else had could give me there 2 cents.

Where did you get the dog ??? Most breeders will guarantee no hip problems. If you are looking for a hunting dog, your best bet is starting over. Maybe you know someone looking for a companion….. it would be ashame to put er down

Sorry, re-read the post, a mix probably didn’t come from a breeder… Sorry again….

no it was from 2 of my other dogs that have passed away. my big thing is i just dont want him to be in pain.

I hear ya…. Many dogs live full lives with Hip Dyplasia, but like you said, daily aspirin and nothing strenuous… definitely no hunting/fetch or other things that dogs love to do…. Tough spot for sure.

First of all, that stinks and I’m sorry to hear it. If it were me, I would probably semi retire the dog from Hunting. Perhaps a small hunt here and there, just to let the dog enjoy what it does. The next time you are in the market for a pup, look at the papers of the parents and look to see if their hips are certified on each parent. The same goes for eyes. Good luck

I agree, I wouldn’t put it down for hips. As Rob said, retire it from hunting.

I have a black lab and when it was around 5 years of age the right rear leg in the hock area had problems, I took it to the Vet and he said the dog would require surgery on the hock –elbow area , more than likely she would end up wrecking the other side do to favoring. What we had as far as sign that something was wrong was he was a very active dog and instantly slowed down and hobbled 3 legged and became a porch dog. They wanted a little over $800.00 per side meaning it would be 1600.00 before it was over for surgery. I swallowed hard and took the dog home, we gave it some aspirins made for dogs and I had to decide to take it for a walk and give it a respectable resting place or wait and hope for something to happen or pay the big bucks,

I waited and the leg or joint actually healed very well on its own, the joint was tore bad believe me but now my lab runs hard and does everything as normal as can be without the big $ dollars or the sad walk.

Maybe I and my lab were lucky

But time, did let it heal on its own

Good Luck

First off, that sucks!

Second, don’t listen to everything the vets tell ya.

We have a year old basset hound and at 8 months he started to limp on one of his front legs. They did x-rays and told us it was a problem with is bones and they are growing funny(sorry I can’t remember the exact name of it)and that he would always have this problem but we could do surgery. We decided to put him on anti-inflammatory meds for a couple weeks and see what happened. Guess what, after 2-3 weeks of limping and only being on the meds for a week, he stopped limping. It was either growing pains or he got injured attaching my lab. He is now 1 year old and has not limped in almost 4 months.

Do yourself a favor, try the meds for a few weeks and see what happens, you owe it to the pup!

Dave

thats what i did. i said i want to try the meds to see if that helps at all. the vet told me i cant give him hardly any exercise but so far it is looking like hes not limping as much. i will keep you guys in tuned.