JS11

Hi everyone, I thought I would let you know what is happening with my little girl. I took her back to the same clinic but saw a different vet who had obviously spent a lot of time looking at her x-rays and showed me that the other vet missed that she was having problems with the joint growing plates (sorry can't remember the proper name). He said it may be uncommon in JS' but that it was very common in small dogs when he worked as a vet in NZ as meat was so cheap there back then that people gave their puppies nothing but meat. He believes the excess protein was the cause of the problem. He gave her cartrophin (sp?) once a week for four weeks. She has been on a huge diet and I have still been exercising her (off lead at beach and park). Her hips have stopped clicking completely, but are still causing her some discomfort -she rarely runs full speed unless having a good day. Just out of interest: The vet said that his 11 month old poodle had exactly the same problem and couldn't walk and can now after the same diet and medicine. My brother's mate's dog (x breed) had same problem as a puppy, they stopped feeding it meat until it was a year old, it came good in a couple of months. I obviously realise that some protien is natural in a puppy's diet... So hopefully her hips will be fine, they have already improved remarkably. She is just going to have to go through life as a giant JS through the initial overfeeding as she is still 8.1 kilos at 7 months after being on a severe diet all this time She's not fat, she has a nice shape and you can feel her ribs! Anyway, thanks for your kind help earlier. Jess

Thanks for all of the advice, I live in WA and have had a couple of recommendations for a specialist, I think I will ring and see how long it takes to get an appointment and then organise one for 2 months time when there should be some improvement if it is diet/excersize related. She was xrayed by the vet and there is no actual bone damage yet (as far as he could tell, and they looked perfectly fine to me), he just said there would be if she didn't get the weight off and stop over doing it with jumping, walking on back legs and running as her ligaments(?) are way too long, allowing her hips to pop in and out. I did contact the breeder a couple of months ago as she was already 6 kilos at 4 months (from memory, not sure exactly) and I was worried. Her reply was that the other puppies in the litter were also that weight. Obviously getting the sinking feeling that I have paid a puppy farmer. Has anyone got some advice about encouraging your puppy to swim, we haven't had much luck so far, she will go into the estuary but she won't go so deep she has to swim. Jess

My 6 month old Japanese spitz puppy has had clicky hips recently and the vet said that her ligaments are way too flexible and put her on a crash diet (she is overweight, she doesn't look it but she's about 2 kilos heavier than she should be thanks to my partner allowing her to self feed while I was on holiday) along with telling us to keep her confined to a crate or on a lead at all times until fully grown -i.e. another 6 months. As you can imagine this is virtually impossible, she loves to run and jump. She got out of her harness in a friend's backyard a couple of days ago and was out there zooming around until I realised 20 minutes later. She is incredibly grumpy right now after 2 weeks of restriction. A few people have said I should get a second opinion (because being hungry and grumpy for months will cause behaviour problems) but her hips had stopped clicking before her harness escape, so I think it will probably work if I can get her to stick to it. Has anyone been in a simliar situation with a spitz? The vet said it could lead to dysplasia if she is left to her own devices, which is rare in Japanese Spitz's (Spitzen?) and obviously fairly awful so advice would be welcomed.