Dogs really love to run around, especially joining their owner for morning walk or jogging. Walking or jogging is one of the simple exercises for your dog to maintain its health. However, how if your dog is limping, unable to walk or run properly just like usual?
Similar to humans, dogs can get injuries or illness related to limping. Another word of the condition of limping is lameness. Lameness is a the condition when the dog unable to walk properly or normally because there’s something wrong with one or more of its limbs. The causes of limping dog may vary, such as pain or the loss of the limbs’ function.
As an owner, you need to be aware once your dog experiences limping or lameness. There must be some serious problems behind limping condition. Let’s see 6 possible reasons of why your dog is limping.
- Injury
The most common cause of limping in dogs is injury. Any dog can experience this on any of its legs. The injury may include muscles sprain, insect bites, cuts or the most serious one – fracture.
Once you figure out that your dog is limping because of injury, be mindful of your actions. Don’t move them for unnecessary reasons and be mindful of being bitten because your dog is in pain. The best way to solve this problem is bringing your dog to the vet.
- Valley Fever
Valley fever is a type of fungal disease found mostly in the Southwest and may affect both very young and very old dogs. Lameness or limping is one of its symptoms. Other symptoms that appear are harsh cough, fever, or even depression. Valley fever can be treated by anti-fungal medication.
- Bone Cancer
Bone cancer commonly happens on large breeds of dogs, but it can also affect any dogs. Because of bone cancer, a dog will be likely to be lame or even getting fractures even after a slight injury.
Cancer is a serious problem and it must be treated quickly. So, once you figure out one of these symptoms, bring your dog directly to your vet.
Cancer is a serious disease that can attack any animals, you can read further information about cancer on certain animals, such as rabbit by reading ways to indicate typical cancer of your pet rabbit.
- Paw Injury
You must know how it feels when you step on a piece of glass. It must hurt so much! That’s what likely to happen when your dog steps on something sharp. Its paw must be very hurt and it will affect the way your dog walks. It will surely not be comfortable and lead to infection.
Insects’ bites and stings can also cause your dog to be limping. Then you might be wondering how you are going to know if your dog’s paw is hurt. Just observe if your dog keeps licking its paws, then there must be something hurting its paws. Injured paws might be one of the reasons why your dog refuses to go for a walk and how to handle it.
- Pano (panosteitis)
Pano or panosteitis is a condition that is caused by bone inflammation. This condition mostly affects puppies around 6 to 9 months old. Medium to large breeds of dogs are mostly affected by this condition.
The dog might start limping all of a sudden without having any specific injuries. Sadly to say, there is no medication to cure this condition, but you can consult with your vet to manage the pain and the dog’s diet to reduce the severity of the symptoms.
- Arthritis
Similar to humans, arthritis also affects dogs in their senior age. This condition can be shown by the dogs’ tendency to walk slowly. They also tend to experience pain in the morning.
This condition might be caused by obesity. Once your dog experiences arthritis, it would be likely to sleep more, have less interest in playing and doing activities and be less alert.
So, one of the solutions you can do to handle this condition is by weight loss treatment and changes in lifestyle. If you need some dog food ideas, you can try these 3 recipes you can cook for your dog.
It will be more healthy and safe! Or if your dog experiences overweight or obesity, you can try these tips of ways to lose your overweight adult dog. You can have your dog well-shaped now!
If your dog finds it hard to walk, you can also try these tips on how to treat a dog that has trouble walking. These treatments are very easy to follow.
After knowing all the 6 possible reasons of why your dog is limping, you might feel more aware of your dog’s condition now. Remember, prevention is better than cure.