My 11 month old Rottie has gone lame, (managed to get vet appointment for tomorrow) both in his front shoulder (slightly lame) and back leg/hip which clicks when he gets up and is very lame at 1st but gradually gets better with movement. Although seemed quite a bit better this morning.
I have heard that the large breed mixes have too much protein and encourage them to grow too quickly. What are your thoughts on this? I will speak to my vet about maybe changing over to an adult mix to slow the growth down, i'm sure that he will probably need to be x-rayed to see what is going on. His parents both had low hip scores.
Any thoughts/advice much appreciated.

can't offer any advice I'm afraid but I'll be watching the answers with interest as we've just got a young rott pup. Hope your lad doesn't have anything too serious going on
julie

I too will be watching posts with interest as my pups on Eukanuba Puppy/Junior Large breed. Good luck with your lad though.

Stacey x x x

Hi

Rotties do suffer with OCD (osteochrondrosis)
which is simply like growing pains,they can grow out of it,its a bit of rough ground as a lot of people have differant ideas.try http://www.vetinfo.com/ there are some very good items about it.If you give it a read before you go the vets it may just prepare you for some questions you may want to ask.
I do know that you should have him/her on a good diet that doesnt force growth,better slightly under weight than fat.Eukanuba have brought out a large breed puppy food for just this reason,I dont actually feed it but its worth looking into.
If you want email me and i can forward tons of internet sites that are rottie related.
Good luck with your vet and your dog,let us know what he says but 1st thing is normally OCD and HD

Hi Carolyn I think you will find its a bit more serious than growing pains & I doubt they grow out of it. The dog will usually need surgery & will remain in some pain without it Some end up permanantly lame.It is said to be hereditary & there is a lot of debate over this, but is generally accepted as the case,along with diet & exercise playing some part.Dogs diagnosed with OCD should not be bred from.
Christine2

Hi Christine
Growing pains was the easiest way of putting it
it does tend to be more common as the pups are growing
ie forced growth rate.
I thought our rottie bitch had it as a young dog,we took her for tests x-rays etc and it turned out to be an infection in the synovial fluid,I emailed anyone i could think of to try to get the reasons and answers,didnt have to much luck as everyone has differing views.

Carolyn - I think you are confusing OCD with Panosteitis!

I was just going to say the same, Lara!

Jo and the Casblaidd Flatcoats

yep i thought she was confusing the two of them also,

Hi Rotty, when I used it, I'd have changed to eukanuba adult at 3 - 4 months for a wolfhound and 4 - 5 months for a deerhound. I had a youngster go through surgery for OCD in his shoulder earlier this year. He came to me at 7 months and he'd been getting a high protein quality puppy food until then. When something goes wrong, its always a bit of a guessing game as to what caused it, but since that I've heard several people blame eukanuba and other high protein quality puppy foods for similar problems with big breeds. Obviously it may not be the same for you, but Lewis was sent straight to a specialist orthopaedic vet who did arthograms as well as X-Rays, and operated on the worse shoulder a few days later. He recovered very well, and hopefully the other shoulder will be OK.

I have fed my malamutes Eukanuba Junior large breed from about 7 weeks of age. If I remember rightly I changed to the Adult large breed at about 12 months. I've never had any problems and they do very well on it.:-)

maid marian that's the advice I've been given off my breeder:)

Stacey x x x

I have raised all my labs on Eukanuba large breed puppy and they have stayed on it until between 12 and 18 mths. They have all done well on it.
Recently I have changed to Nutro large breed puppy as my rotti pup became ill whenever fed Eukanuba. I'm very happy with Nutro so far.

Hi This food is really good ,Both my puppies are on this make, Two vets have told me this is the best dried food for puppie to be on.It's quite hard for me to get but worth all the problems
little freddie is only 8 week's and on the puppie for large dogs feed.He looks great so far:)

Patx

Hi everybody,
thanks so much for all of your input. i spoke to the breeder of our boy ansd she said to take him off the Eukanuba. I have been feeding the large breed puppy and junior range.
I will not be breeding off him as he has already been castrated!!!
He is such a sweet gentle dog, so i hope that it is not too seroius, thank god he is insured!
I will go to the vet info site, thanks very much for that and will let you know what the vet says this evening.
Thanks very much for taking the time the time to reply.

Pat, at one time vets used to recommend chappie ;-) I think you will find that they get a better 'cut' from Euk. If you're happy with it, that's all that really matters :-)

hI Leigh do you know they still think chappie very good becasue of the fish oils
and the vets we are with are attached to the royal veterinary college .

you get all the students surround the dog and he gets lot's of attention but you have to pay the private money which is no problem .
Zac having a field day now steeling all the puppie food they both look like oliver and hardy Lol

Pat xx

I'm glad to hear they still recommend good ol' chappie :D

I feed all my Peke's (adult & pups) & Chow Chow with Eukanuba and haven't any complaints, they are all very healthy

I feed Euk and will stick with it until it stops working for my dogs. :-)

Interesting what you say Leigh about vets and their recommendations. My gran took her rescue tibbie to be spayed, as she is on benefit the NCDL very kindly help out and my gran only had to pay £20 and the NCDL pay the rest. She had to go to a particular vet who runs this scheme. It's fairly obvious my gran doesn't have a lot of money and yet that still didn't stop the vet and the nurses trying to encourage my gran to stop feeding the tins of pedigree chum and buy their Hills Science diet which is even more expensive than the Euk :rolleyes: I took great pleasure in being there when they started waffling on about Hills ;-)

Possibly due to the commission they receive by selling it as it was the only food they recommended :-(

Hi Rottybird, both my rotts were reared on Beta puppy which worked really well for them, my eldest one who is spayed has not got a brilliant hip score, she is now 6 and has never had a problem with it, but we do tend to keep both the Rotts leaner than fatter. Fingers crossed for your vets visit !
Lorraine

Hi everybody,
well the vet seems to think that it is most likely to be OCD. So poor Bear is at the vets today having x-rays on his shoulder and hips. So hopefully we will know for sure this pm. My vet advised me to feed an adult food to slow the growth down. She attended a conference on veterinary orthapedics last week, and the general consensus was that puupy foods are too high in protein for the larger breeds and they should not be fed on them, she recommended Chappie.
She was really pleased with his bodily condition, she said his was in perfect proportion and was nicely lean.
Thanks for your interest and replies.
will let you know tomorrow what the outcome is.

I've just spoken to the vet and his x-rays are all clear! She did say that sometimes the tiny splinters of bone don't show up, but hips are fine as well. He is going to get some rimadyl as it is a suspected soft tissue injury in his shoulder and 3 weeks of lead walk only - oh what fun that will be!!!
I will definately stick with the adult food though,
thankyou all very much for your replies, it is very much appreciated. My other half is picking the poor baby up at 2.30pm for lots and lots of cuddles, and to think that i felt so sorry for him this morning that he got the VERY rare treat of being allowed a cuddle ON the bed this morning - LOL.

was it other half or pup that got the cuddle on the bed ?! :D
glad to hear that your boy is OK. reminds me of my GSD who went lame on his front legs 3 times before he was a year old, he had all the xrays etc and they could never see anything so put it down to growing pains. He was fine after that first year and never had any problems after that. I'm sure they do it just to scare us!:)

Hi Julie,
definately the dog!!!! Christopher knows his place in the pecking order and that is behind the horses, dog, cats (x5), guinea pigs and various fish LOL!!!!!
The vet mentioned that it could be panosteitis SP, basically growing pains of the bones. He was very hard work this morning, even on his Halti - i don't think that i'm going to make 3 weeks without collapsing or going totally insane!
Regards,
Tamara

Hi Tamara, delighted to hear that Bear is OK.

God I know how you feel, when we first had Lucy our rescued rotty she had no manners on the lead at all and used to drag me everywhere! She's pretty good now though, she doesn't exactly walk to heel but she doen't pull any more and even lets me go through the door/gate first without having to be told :) tables have turned a bit since she's turned into an old lady, I usually have to drag her home as she pretends she's too tired!

Thanks for all your kind words!
I've just started taking him to dog training and he is great with the sit stay and down stay, but crap with walking to heel as well. The little tike knows when i haven't got that Halti on as well and pulls like a steam train!
Incidentally when i took him to the vet there was a chap with a greyhound and his 18 month old toddler, they made a great fuss of Bear, Bear was licking the little girls hand, they asked how old he was etc. The chap then said " he's a St Bernard isn't he?" i replied "no a Rottweiler" he was aghast and said that if he'd known that he wouldn't have touched him!! I think that Bear has changed his opinion about Rotties, especially whan we were leaving and Bear walked straight into the window Doh!

Glad your Bear is fine :-)
My puppy rottie (15 weeks) his name is bear too
big soft silly thing.

Hi carolyn,
where did you get your pup from?
Baby Bears dad was also called Bear!
They are so cute when they are little podgy pups!
Regards,
Tamara

I bred him myself.
I have mom and dad and auntie, sister
all go to bed with me except dad 9he will cock his leg in my bedroom)
only trouble is if 1 is missing off the bed it feels so odd,
they have me very well trained.

Tamara
come on admit it I'll bet you creased up when the poor boy walked into the window!! :D
I know I would have, my 3 yr old son walked into a post the other day and I was laughing so much I couldn't help him up hubby had to comfort him and tell me off at the same time :D

Carolyn, we have 2 that sleep on the bed and usually end up with our 6 year old son in the middle, husband takes to the sofa in the middle of the night. both mine are frantic toe cleaners as well, if your feet come out the covers they have one foot each, don't know if it a rottie thing or a bitch thing as Lucy the Rot, sadly gone several years ago, used to do it as well
Lorraine

Hi

Mine are feet cleaners too and will watch you take your shows off then pounce :-)
My male really isnt too bothered he will have a little go but thats it,and they try to chew the nails off your feet :-)
I wouldnt be with out my rottweiler water bottles.

Must be a Rottie thing then, one of mine is in season and keeps making advances to Daisy, the older bitch, really funny as Daisy keeps plonking her bum on the carpet and heaves great sighs, if she could roll her eyes she would.

Lorraine