My Great Dane, Junior, has been diagnosed with hip dysplasia. He is only 8-months-old and I feel so badly for him. What can be done? He is a very big boy. Junior is already 120 lbs and 34" at the withers. I followed all my veterinarian's advice on how to prevent hip dysplasia, too! He's been eating a very healthy food called Eagle Pack Large & Giant Breed Puppy. I only feed him 8 cups per day to keep him lean. It's a very good quality food with 23% protein. Junior has been getting Cosequin every day since he was very young. It contains Glucosamine, Chondroitin, MSM and a lot more. He was the same height at 7 months, but has since gained 10 pounds, which concerns me. I'm considering cutting back on his food to get the extra 10 pounds off of him. I take Junior for walks, but he is never allowed to run or jump. I take him for a 20-minute walk twice a day. I was waiting until he was 2-years-old to start running with him. I never let him jump for any reason. I took him in yesterday to get his hip x-rays. I was absolutely shocked when the veterinarian told me that he was severe hip dysplasia in both hips! He will be getting his neuter and gastropexy in 5-days.
Hi it is very hard to determine hip dysplasia in large breeds before the age of two and when they are usually x-rayed if being used in a breeding programme for hip scoring purposes. Has your dog been x-rayed ? Even then the socket may not seem to fit the ball joint well it does not necessarily mean they will have bad hips. Large and xtra large dogs take far longer to grown into themselves. Knocking a bit of weight off will not hurt exercise it seems you are doing it right. Lots of on leads walks and if you can find somewhere with a gradient that is good to as it helps build up the much needed muscle so if in the future your dog is suffering with hip problems it has good strong muscle to help keep the hips in place. I use cortaflex equine strength it goes further as you need less of it as my Bernese has elbow dysplasia and a distal rotation on his back paw plus two damaged digits from when he was young and overlooked by our then vet. He was x-rayed at 6 months old and we were told hip dysplasia but on research and advice from others he was to young to determine whether he has bad hips or not. We have not had the hips x-rayed again. He does very well with a programme of cartrophen injections also. He is now 5 and loves life long walks and running and playing and bouncing about.
Was he showing any signs of HD limping, walking funny or pain. Did the vet diagnose or a specialist? It also depends a lot on how the dog was positioned on the table for the x-rays http://leerburg.com/hipart.htm As said above he is still young and growing. Personally id want a specialist to confirm and not just take the vets word. Depends entirely upon the severity of the dysplasia, I have known dogs live to old age on pain relief with a good quality of life.
Yes, he x-rays were taken. It was done by my veterinarian. I bought this dog for show and breeding. Since his hips are so bad, I'm going to neuter him (gastropexy at the same time) and find him a pet home. It's a shame that I paid his breeder extra for the gorgeous show crop of his ears. Mother had good hips, but father wasn't health tested. I now wish I didn't look over that. They are an AKC Breeder of Merit, so I took it for granted that the pups would be healthy. I'm looking into importing a pup from Europe, but it's nearly impossible to find one with a good crop, or a crop at all, and it's becoming harder and harder to find vets around my area that will even do it.
