Skipping/Limp

[squish13]

Hi All,

I'm a bit worried... The other day on a weeny walk people noticed Farfel was "skipping" on her back leg. Almost like a limp. One person mentioned that their doxies had done it too and it was "normal"... I'm wondering if anyone knows what this could be?

I don't notice it inside, if I slow her right down she doesn't do it as much and she doesn't show any pain. Not to mention she runs like crazy around the house at night.

Of course googling it is freaking me out. She has a vet appt on Friday to get spayed (she just turned 6 months) but I'm wondering if I should wait until then. I know you have to be super careful with them jumping and stuff and I try and prevent it but she does tend to jump up on me. Stairs and stuff are super minimal otherwise. Never jumps off anything high.

Thanks...

 

[Steph]

It sounds like a luxating patella. It is common in smaller breed dogs, but it is by no means "normal" What happens when you see the skip/hop/limp is that the knee cap has slipped out of place and they "skip" to get it back into place. There are varying degrees of luxation.

Floating Kneecaps or Luxating Patella in Dogs

 

[squish13]

Everything on that page seems much more severe than this appears. This is literally like a human skipping a long. It's almost like she's just skipping because her front legs are going faster.

 

[squish13]

I found this on another forum, so I'm going to try not to freak out since she's going to the vet on Friday anyway!

This sounds much like what she's doing.

Our Sprinkles (she's 9 months old) walks like that except she actually does a little hippety hoppety on her right leg and lifts up her left leg. My husband and I thought that there might be something wrong with her so we asked the vet to check it out. The vet didn't seem to SEE anything wrong with it and decided to take an xray of the leg while Sprinkles was under (while getting spayed). Luckily the vet did not find anything wrong in the xray.​

 

[Doxmom]

Good luck at the vets on Friday, Squish, and keep us updated..

 

[squish13]

FYI - I took Farfel to the vet on Friday for her spay, she's now a cone head for a week... poor thing.

Anyway, asked about the skipping and the vet extensively checked her and said that it is probably just a "quirk". She might have done it a couple times on a cold day and got used to it. Alternatively, it could be related to growing pains since although she's close to full size their bones don't actually "set" until 1 year. He said not to worry unless she seemed in pain. Soooo just as everyone who knows Farfel told me, but it's good to get confirmation.