Since before she turned 1, our now 2 year old (24 month) Labrador has occasionally shown a slight stiffness in a back leg when getting up from resting after exuberant playing/running. It’s practically a given when we have her littermate visit and they go wild playing for an hour in our yard. I’ll see her keeping weight off one back leg, and then in a matter of minutes, she’s moving normally. I haven’t noticed if it’s always one leg or the other. She’s healthy. She’s a healthy weight—though she was temporarily overweight for about 4 months last year. We got her right back down when our vet pointed out the problem. She takes her heartworm and flea/tick medicines each month. She’s a happy, and energetic pup. She has at least two walks a day, plus daily swimming in our pool during the summer. She’s our first Lab—and the first dog I’ve ever raised from puppyhood—and I hadn’t thought much about it, since it goes away so quickly. I’m thinking about it now because the other night I was scrolling through the forum and happened to see some posts about hip dysplasia and arthritis. I have a call into her vet, but was wondering if the consensus here is that this is always cause for concern and intervention, or if it is ever just muscle soreness from zooming around. I ordered some joint care supplements last night, just as a precaution, and figure they won’t do any harm. Thanks.
Yes, it could be other things, like joint/muscle/tendon injury, but my advice is to get your dog to the vet in order to get a proper diagnosis and treatment. Maybe you will also need to modify her exercise regime.
Thank you for your reply, Berna, and apologies for not acknowledging it sooner. Pancakes had TPLO surgery on Friday, August 14. Back in March, we ended up consulting with our vet via phone--things were just getting bad with Covid in NY, so we didn't want to do an office visit--and he advised to go ahead and use the glucosamine chondroitin supplements, shorten walks a bit, not throw toys far distances for fetches, and just be sure to give her a day of rest (no walks beyond the yard) if we noticed she had any lameness of stiffness. If things worsened, he recommended x-rays. We followed this advice, and things stayed pretty much the same, until a few weeks ago, when she made a sharp turn while zooming around the yard one afternoon. She began holding her hind leg up, and didn't put any weight on it that evening, or the next morning. She'd never had that much trouble before, so we brought her to vet. He suspected a CCL, and x-rays a week later confirmed it. We considered the various surgical options, and given her young age, high activity level, and otherwise good health, we decided on TPLO. She had the surgery on Friday, and came home Sunday. She's recovering well as of now, with many weeks of recovery ahead. (We did learn through the x-rays that her hips and spine are great, and there's no sign of arthritis.)
