My 8 month old female black lab is having issues with her neck. Runs with head down, looks at you with her head cocked to the side and sometimes will just stop and sit or wobble. She has been treated with antibiotics and steroids and is currently on anti inflammatory with moderate relief. Could this just be an injury from rough housing with my other labs? Or could this be a spinal issue? Vet wants to do Mir or send to LSU. I don't have that kind of money. Suggestions or advice.
Did this just start? How long has it been going on? Google up on Vestibular Disease and see if anything you find sounds familiar. It is sometimes called Geriatric Vestibular Disease but it's not exclusively an old dog ailment, though your girl does sound very young for it. It's often confused with ear infection, epilepsy and stroke. Not trying to scare you. My sister's dog had VD when he was 12, went on to nearly 17. Laddie could not walk for a month, he had the eyes zinging around and the head tilt. Sis's Vet said it typically would last a month to a month and a half and resolve as suddenly as it appeared. A month to the day Laddie just got up and walked again, retaining only a bit of head tilt that improved as time went by. Just trying to not scare you now as VD is not usually a very bad thing though awfully distressing to dog and owner while it lasts. WElcome to the board but sorry it's for a concerning reason. What is puppy girl's name? ETA: Thought I'd better add, I'm not suggesting your forgo the Vet. Some Vets are not familiar with VD though.
Hi and welcome to the forum Sounds like it would be worthwhile to investigate this further. Can you vet do an X-ray (will show up any misalignment of the spine)? It does sound like she's pretty sore in the neck area. Dogs can give themselves spinal injuries running into things (walls, trees) head-on when playing. My first Lab had a very bad neck/spinal injury and he had to wear a neck brace for many weeks while the vertebrae fused. It was important to get a clear picture of how bad the damage was. He was not allowed to play with any other dogs till he'd recovered due to the serious consequences of re-injury. He was on periodic anti-inflammatories all his life. I'd encourage you to work with your vet to try to work out the underlying problem here... Maybe talk about the cost of an X-ray and whether that'd be a useful but less expensive option than an MRI or sending her off to another facility. Let us know how you get on. I'm sure this is a big source of worry at the moment.
It came to me by reading this that perhaps she has wobblers syndrome? Mind you, I am not a vet! I think it is important to talk to your vet and ask what the options are! A MRI costs a lot, x-Ray less.... But then again, you can't find everything with just a x-Ray.... Thinking about you! Annemarie
