My boy isnt walking (X-rays inside) - Page 7

The dog chiropractor is a good idea .. those guys are masters of working from symptoms and hands on the body diagnosis. Veterinarians and doctors work from lab results and decision tree diagnosis schemes. Sometimes trying something new makes sense if the medical doctrine is not working. At the very least perhaps the chiropractic can isolate the pain to a specific area causing the symptoms. The best physical rehabilitation vet I have seen or worked with was not at a vet school .. he was 15 years out of vet school and many years ahead of what they could do at NC State. He used high intensity focused ultrasound to help my dog some 5 years ago and the medical and vet industrial complex is just now "discovering HIFU" while the Chinese have used it for 10 years or more in China for cancer and many other ailments. In my dog's case the HIFU helped cure one problem ( torn and adhered muscle ) and orthopedic surgery was required to repair another injury and neither doctor agreed with the other treatment. We ( my dog and I ) had to find our way through the maze of opinions and poor diagnosis alone. The best rehabilitation vets steal from all disciplines including chiropractic and unapproved methodology to get the best results for your dog and if you can't find one you must do the best you can on your own. Don't trust the vet school hospitals to get it right as in the previously mentioned dog's case they made numerous expensive and painful mistakes. The last thing you want is some third year vet student practicing on your dog.

nick, to the point: please take this dog to the vet school, as soon as possible. I understand the financial concern, but generally it turns out that the vet schools are able to offer advanced diagnostics at a reduced cost because the costs to acquire the necessary equipment is lower for those facilities and very often were paid for by donations. I'm no vet, but from what I observed in that clip, it would come as no surprise to me to find that your dog is dealing with Cauda Equina syndrome or some other narrowing of intervertebral space in the spine, and if either is the case it can be corrected surgically. There's a board member here, Radar's Mom, whose young GSD went through this, and hopefully she sees this thread and your video, and can weigh in on what they were seeing young Radar that led to him being diagnosed with Cauda Equina. Likewise, another member, clc29, had a young dog suffer an injury at 18 months of age which affected the L7/S1 disc, and required surgical intervention similar to what is done for CES. I'll private message both and ask them to check out this thread and your video. Both of these members commented on an earlier thread started by an owner whose dog had been diagnosed with CES and would be having the surgery.

The vet schools are operated to train veterinarians and get funding from donations, grants, higher education support by the government, and tuition. The primary concern of those who run vet hospitals is keeping their reputation squeaky clean ( to protect their donation and grant funding ) and protecting the reputation of the veterinarians graduating from the institution and the reputation of the vet hospital's staff. They don't give a damn about you and even less about your dog. Your dog is just a "case" for one of their third year vet students to "practice" on. The North Carolina State Vet Hospital in Raleigh made a ton of mistakes on a dog of mine starting with misdiagnosis. They kept my dog sedated for an entire morning while they worked on other cases and while doing surgery "with the latest and greatest" equipment drilled an extra hole in his leg at the wrong place (oops) but they assured me it was actually a good thing. Twelve months later that hole had still not healed up in his bone. So go to the vet hospital and get a good deal but just know there are also many mistakes made in these "teaching" hospitals and they never admit to their mistakes or own them. One of the lessons that third year veterinary students learn in their vet hospital training is to never admit or own your mistakes and it is taught by the staff and administrators running the place. Be careful as they will trot in 3 or 4 people in white coats and lie to you with a sincere and concerned look on their faces which is another lesson they learn at the vet hospital ( how to lie and look concerned and sincere ).

bubba, I'm starting to think the trouble is that you have yet to find a vet who was properly awed by, and deferential to, your depth of knowledge and experience, and yet to find one who found you a pleasant customer with whom to work.

Dr Wayne Berry in Irvine, Ca is a top brain and spine vet. People from all over take their animals to him to get his opinion.

I sure would like to see this dog get a full neuro/ortho work-up by the best... Nick, if you can check out Dr. Berry, I sure would do that!

I actually have to say, in the interest of being fair to Bubba in this case (I'm only commenting on the outcome, not any of the other conspiracy-type allegations), that I had a very similar issue with the local (4 hours from me) teaching university. $6,000 later (one surgery for $4500 and a subsequent pointless one for $1500), the dog was way worse off than he'd been before surgery...where they put a screw in wrong and stripped it, to boot, so that it could not be removed without potentially causing more harm or the bone to break. This wasn't discovered (because they didn't admit it and said it went great) until the dog never improved after months and months, and more surgery was done to remove the problematic screw...which was impossible. So, the dog had 2 surgeries that left him worse off than he ever was before...all before a year old. This was the University of IL. I used to be much more of a proponent of teaching hospitals (a teaching hospital saved both my life and my son's!) before this experience and the way it was handled (very much like Bubba's experience- admit nothing).

So, like all things, some are better than others and one person's experience is not identical to another's. Regardless of the avenue chosen, vet your vet! Check references if at all possible- get recommendations. There's a lot riding on the quality of care.

Jenni, the difference is that you actually write posts about things OTHER than how terribly awful and money-hungry the practitioners of both human and veterinary medicine are.

No question that one MUST 'vet' ANY professional who will be dealing with anything that can be life-or-death--but let's not scare the behaysuse out of the OP, and out of novices, when they come here with a health-related concern.

I appreciate everyone's advice and I would love to take my dog to see Dr. Berry but I'm on orders right now and can't just leave because my dog isn't well. In reality I'm probably going to keep using my same vet since she works with the university routinely and my dog is comfortable with her and he really doesn't like to many people. She already did x-rays of the spine and said that everything looked good, what do I need to tell her or ask her to do?

nick, she needs to get a board-certified orthopaedist and/or neurologist in as at least a consult, to make sure she isn't missing something--as young as your dog is, any of the conditions that could be causing the problem will be unlikely to be glaring when viewing an x-ray, but the specialists are trained to look for the minutia of such disorders.

I appreciate everyone's advice and I would love to take my dog to see Dr. Berry but I'm on orders right now and can't just leave because my dog isn't well. In reality I'm probably going to keep using my same vet since she works with the university routinely and my dog is comfortable with her and he really doesn't like to many people. She already did x-rays of the spine and said that everything looked good, what do I need to tell her or ask her to do?

That last sentence has me concerned.    If your vet thinks that everything with your dog is OK, then I highly suggest that you get a second opinion, as clearly everything is not OK.    You shouldn't be needing to tell the vet what to look for, as that is their job.