Hi,
I'm looking for a bit of help with a problem I'm having with my staffy.  On 3 occassions she has collapsed and gone 'off her legs' for up to 24 hours at a time.  The vets did not know what it was but xrayed her and said her hips were fine and it might be a trapped nerve or something.  I also saw a specialist about it but he said he needed to see her during an episode to get an idea about what it might be.  i was wondering if any staff owners have had anything similar.  the last time it happened was last night and the time before that was about 4 months ago.  there is no trigger for these and I'm positive its nothing to do with her eating something poisonous because it sometimes happens in the morning before she's been out and theres no real pattern to the attacks.  Its like she's totally paralysed in her back legs but she doesn't seem to be too distressed by it. Any help gratefully received.

Do you have any other dogs and do they sleep together?  The reason I ask is that one of my bitches did something very similar twice and the second time I had come downstairs to find two of them in the same bed with the older, much heavier bitch sleeping on top of the one that then could not walk for much of the day.  Almost as if her body had "gone to sleep".  She was not worried and carried on as normal once she was up and about again.

I only have one dog and she hasn't always been sleeping when it happens.  It distresses me more than it distresses her and the specialist she saw about her weird snorting thing said he was more concerned about the unexplained collapsing than the original complaint but I haven't been able to get to Edinburgh when she is off her legs.

Could you video her when she has an attack and show it to the specialist. That may help.

I don't have a camcorder and none of my neighbours were in at the time as that is what the specialist suggested too.  Planning to upgrade to a video phone so maybe next time I'll catch it on video.

I read your post with much interest as I also have a staffy who has nearly the exact symptoms as your dog. The only difference being that her lameness lasts only about a minute but she collapses everytime she has had a rest or a sleep then hobbles on one leg and then is fine.  She also has had x-rays and nothing showed up and is fit and healthy in every other way. You also mentioned about some grunting in a later post, this is very strange as my pup also grunts in a very peculiar way.  I have another 3 staffy's besides her so know that this grunting is not the usual staffy noises that they make, it makes me wonder if there's any connection.

She's on 2 weeks complete rest right now which means I'm having to cage her so I will let you know if there's any improvment. She's back at the vets next week so I'm now going to mention the grunting as you've got me thinking.

Anne.

hi Annestaff,
its reassuring to hear someone else say they have experienced similar symptoms as I think my vet thinks i'm making it up or exaggerating.  I don't know if the snorting and collapsing are related as the vet school in edinburgh is split into different areas and the collapsing, nose snorting and stomach problems (sickness and diahorrea) are all in different departments and none of them found anything conclusive - apart from a lot of bacteria in her throat but treating this hasn't made much difference to her symptoms.  My dog had her hips x-rayed but this is definitely not the problem and it might be muscular or related to her nerves.  Apart from this catalogue of disease symptoms, like your own dog, she is very fit and healthy!

My pup had her spine, hips and legs x-rayed and nothing was found just like you with your dog. When she collapses which is everytime she has had a sleep now her back end drops to the floor and then she hops on one leg.  2 minutes later she's racing around like nothing is wrong.  My vet is very good but like you he needs to see this happening. 

Hi

My 10 year old staff seems to be doing something similar.  It seems to happen when he has been laid down for a considerable amount of time, i.e. it mostly happens when he gets up in the morning.  His back legs seem to shoot out involuntarily, can be either leg, I think it is some sort of muscle spasm.  He just falls down, and gets back up again, sometimes hes so busy just running around, one of his legs just trails behind him until he stops and realises.  I have spoken to the vet about it, who suggested I could put him on vivitonin, which increases the blood flow.  We are just monitoring it at the moment.  The vet has said as long as its not causing a real problem and he'e back on his feet straight away he would prefer not to put him on medication yet, as he would probably have to take it for the rest of his life.  He did have a short course of vivtonin a couple of months ago.  I think it may have had some effect, but not I'm entirely convinced as I think you sometimes see what you want to see.

Julie