Shoulder X Ray Opinions - Page 1

Hey All,

My male ( http://www.pedigreedatabase.com/german_shepherd_dog/dog.html?id=2137003-jerlands-maximus-vi ) developed an on and off limp of his front right shoulder over the winter. Earlier this spring when the snow had finally gone down enough to get out and do some SAR training, we spent a whole weekend tracking after a friday where we had gone on about a 4 mile run. He was really sore on the front right leg after that so I became slightly concerned about what was going on as he's coming up on 5 years now and had led an extremely active lifestyle up to this point. The limp didn't really slow him down or seem to keep him from wanting to go about the normal routine but I could tell it was bothering him. My vet wasn't really able to get much of a reaction from him other than slightly less flexability in his right leg than his left so he wanted to do x rays. I had never had his elbows OFA'ed so I opted to have him sedated to have the elbows checked as well as x rays of the shoulder joints. Elbows just came back today at 57 months "Normal" so no issues there. The side view of the shoulder joints showed absolutely no signs of arthritis or irregularities such as a burst bursa sac or anything. The only thing my vet could see was the slight irregular joint position of the right shoulder in the attached photo. His only guess is that my male must have slammed into something or fell awkwardly onto his shoulder creating some type of impact injury. His only suggestion was low impact exercise for a while and keeping him from re-aggrivating it so it can heal. 

Does anyone else have any other suggestions or opinions from looking at the x ray? I'm in a pretty rural area and my vet optoins aren't the greatest without traveling a ways. If the injury keeps flairing up I will likely go for a second opinion in case there is some type of soft tissue damage that occured and wont repair itself with rest and low impact exercise.

Thanks for any input!

Jim K.