My 15 month old Malinois dog has Panosteitis, and although we've been told to treat him as normal, he should not be rested etc (is on Rimadyl and Glucosamine/Chondroitin and quite happy) we have had to give up showing him as his movements are affected and his front legs look like Charlie Chaplin's feet eg. turned out quite a bit. Everything I have read says Pano does resolve of its own in time and the dog will be normal, but WILL he really get straight legs and feet again?  I'm just curious, we've already decided it's not the end of the earth if he has to be an obedience dog only and not be shown again, but it IS a shame as before it happened he was doing really well in the ring. First symptoms were in December (stared backing away from judges which we have since been told was almost definitely due to the pain as it was so sudden), feet started turning out just before Crufts :rolleyes: and by May his movement had been affected.(Before then he often won a class becase his movement was so good.)

Anyone? Please?

My Dobie suffered from Pano quite badly.  By the time she was 18 months old it had completely gone altogether.  Her movement has not been affected in the long term whatsoever.  She was so lame before then that i didn't believe the vet that she would return to normal - but she did!

We actually managed to control her pain through the use of junior paracetamol (for humans).  At pence per pack it was significantly cheaper than her prescribed painkillers and had exactly the same effect.

I believe that very few are affected after about 18 months, so hopefully the end is in sight for you.

Don't want to dispute what the above poster states, just a reminder: Don't give paracetamol to dogs, their liver can't break it down like ours do, so they can end up poisoned.
Karen

Not to worry, he's on Rimadyl (temporarily, l intend to take him off it) and Glucosamine with Chondroitin, and once the G&C kicks in he will come off the Rimadyl.

Thanks, that's really nice to hear!!

Hi Marianne!
Glad the reply you got was so positive! Sounds promising for your dog's future, keeping fingers crossed he's soon well again. I did read your post, so noticed your dog is on Rimadyl and Glucosamin. The reason I added my post was someone else might in the future do a search on the subject, and give their dog paracetamol without knowing the risks.
Good luck with our dog, I'm sure you'll be able to show him again soon.
Best wishes,
Karen

A friend of mine had a foster litter of GSD's all of whom she had on a premium diet which she expected the new owners to keep up with too.She eventually re-homed them all,but 4mths later one got returned to her with a devastating case of pano,the new owner ignored her advice and fed Gusto mixed with pedigree :rolleyes:
With good nutrition the dog made a full recovery,thank goodness! The rest of the litter all did well and none of them had any problems,but their owners followed the diet recommendations.
Goldmali i dont know what you feed but a good diet goes a long way in curing this condition,all the supplements in the world wont take the place of this and it will take longer to right itself, if at all....

ktee I have been told by my vet (who is a bone specialist) that the WORST thing you can do for a dog with Pano is feed a high quality diet (i.e. RC, Eukanuba, anything like that) as this is often the cause........it makes them grow too fast. So it needs to be less protein etc.  I've had 3 vets all agree Pedigree is the best he can be on, not too low and not too high in anything.

one of mine had pano - it's difficult to say how much it affected him, as when they x-rayed they noticed very mild ocd too.  the pano was diagnosed because his limp shifted from leg to leg, and there was a distinct 'fuzzy' area on his x-ray, which the vet said was inflammation.  however, i'm inclined to believe it was the pano giving him trouble, and we found the ocd by chance - he hasn't limped once since turning 18 months :)  i started him on green lipped mussel extract at about 14 months, and have continued him on that, wonder if that may be of some help for your boy?  I also tried to keep him fairly active (within reason), which did seem to make him less stiff.  I was told to avoid high protein food too..

I was actually told by the vet that on a large dog, a junior paracetamol occassionally as pain relief was fine.  I have actually had the same advice this week with regards to paracetamol, for one of my other dogs for another condition.  It wasn't something i just made up myself!!

Paracetamol posioning in dogs & cats

Normally it is aspirin.

>that the WORST thing you can do for a dog with Pano is feed a high quality diet<

You're joking arent you?

A high quality diet does not automatically mean HIGH protein and/or HIGH fat,which by the way has less to do with bone/joint problems than the calc/phos ratio's,but i'm sure you're vets would have informed you of this??

I just went and had a look at eukanuba,not a food i would call high quality,but you mentioned it so for comparisons sakes...

>Junior small breed<

protein-32%
Fat-21%
Cal-1.2%
phos-1.0

>Large breed puppy<

Protein-26%
Fat-14%
calcium-0.80%
Phos-0.63%

I've spent the last hour trying to look for the ratio's to pedigree but have come up empty,cant find anything.Their only reference to their large breed food is that it has larger pieces :rolleyes:

You do not have to skimp on quality to feed a large breed dog.There are foods out there that specialise in large breeds that have great ingredients and the correct ratio's of protein,fat and cal,phos. You dont even have to feed a large breed food,an all life stages would be appropriate too,as long as the owner is aware on what to feed and what not to,there shouldnt be a problem.

In the case of the gsd mentioned before,the new owners fed a bad food and the dog paid the price,all the other pups from the litter were fed an appropriate food and all are doing well!

>3 vets all agree Pedigree is the best he can be on, not too low and not too high in anything.<

And what exactly are the ratio's to pedigree? Did the vets have a look at the ingredients and say "yes this is a great food,and you're dog should be on it"? I just cant see any vet worth their salt on the subject of nutrition advocating this type of food . There is absolutely NO need to skimp on quality to find the right food for your dog.

Paracetamol poisoning can happen to humans, if we taketoo much of it.  It's not because it is particularly poisonous to dogs.  In a large breed dog, (my dobe is 35kg), half a paracetamol is not dangerous.  I have reiterated this fact with my vet again today, who today said that one of my much smaller dogs (18kg) was allowed half a one as pain relief.

Yes, if you give dogs too much it could poison them but just as easily humans can be poisoned if they have too much.

As far as vets and food goes - mine do not advocate the BARF diet whatsoever, but the positive change in my dogs since fed this way is amazing and now i wouldn't feed anything else.

If you read this you'll see it's not just the THREE vets I have seen that say you should not feed too rich a diet,
but it is quite a wide spread opinion:

http://www.vonfalconer.com/panosteitis.html
http://www.videxgsd.com/panosteitis.htm
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=11980379&dopt=Abstract
http://www.labbies.com/nutri.htm
http://www.guidedogsofthedesert.com/PDFs/PuppyRaiserInfo1203.PDF#search=%22panosteitis%20rich%20food%22
http://www.lowchensaustralia.com/health/pano.htm
http://www.leonbergerunion.com/health.htm

And these are just the frst few I found when Googling, there were more. So no,I am definitely not JOKING.

Not one of those links says anything remotely close to "dont feed a high quality food". The main correlation between them seems to be not to higher protein,which everyone knows should not be fed to large growing dogs anyway,and a couple recognise the cal/phos thing,but none of them say to feed a low quality food like pedigree!

>by going to a lower-protein but still highly digestible food<

The fifth link(guide dogs) feeds eukanuba large breed puppy ;)

Alot of people would say pedigree is a "too rich" food,which is why it's nicknamed pedigree bum.To me,rich foods are something smothered in gravy or butter.Rich and dog food dont make sense to me

I can see we will never agree on this,as no-one will ever convince me that a low quality food is better than a high quality one.As we have discovered high quality doesnt have to mean high protein and fat,there are loads of high quality foods out there with the correct ratio's.

>Oh and by the way, one of the littermates who has been fed on Pedigree all along (i.e. from 7 weeks) has never developed Panosteitis<

Hooray for him :) He may not have developed Pano,but there are far,far worse things that can happen to a dog when fed a low quality food than joint disease!

It's your definition of high quality and low quality that people don't understand   All UK foods are made within the optimum range of nutritional requirements the rest is down to personal choice.

>far worse things that can happen to a dog when fed a low quality food than joint disease

Putting aside your distinction of "low quality", why should anything worse happen?  Unless the food does not suit that particular dog, due to an intolerance for a particular ingredient for instance whick can happen with any food or diet, it will be meeting all it's requirements and in the case of large breeds, by many reports, not overdoing it, which can be a danger with foods that have been pushed up the optimum range in certain areas, the so call "high quality foods" :).  By another definition they could, perhaps, be referred to a the "too rich" foods and be applied with a nickname such as "bum" ;)

Fullly agree Isabel. Just look at my old Cavalier -who according to the vet should have died almost 4 years ago due to his heart. He's on Gusto and does just fine -as are all my adult dogs (except the Pap) ranging from 3 to 11. (The ones still growing are on Pedigree.)

I've never fed Premium foods, apart from a one month RC trial last year which left my bitch starving hungry and fat, and I have not had any health problems in my dogs for the past 15 years or so, with the exception of the cavalier with the heart (hardly unusual), the Golden with HD (little wonder when mum had a score of 60), the cavalier with distemper and now the Mali with Pano -that's a lot of dogs with nothing as much as an ear infection. I currently have 6 dogs that never have seen the vet for anything but boosters or accidental injuries.

Oh and by the way, one of the littermates who has been fed on Pedigree all along (i.e. from 7 weeks) has never developed Panosteitis and was BB at Bournemouth this Monday.(Don't know what the others are fed.) So your theory of the littermates being fed on the higher quality food being the ones that will be okay don't hold there.

I was told that diet and other external factors would have no bearing on the dog suffering from this condition.  My vet described it to be almost like 'growing pains'.  Big dogs, growing quickly and getting inflamation around the lining of their bones.  It is not very common so i would think quite unlikely that the other litter mates would suffer. 

Information on panosteitis.

http://onibasu.com/archives/kn/127512.html >I couldnt agree more with the author in this link,very interesting read<

So the conclusion of the above referenced research stresses the need for high quality protein to achieve the best growth and immune systems. No proof was found that protein amounts affect skeletal growth in any adverse, except when using too little or too poor quality.

http://b-naturals.com/Jan2004.php

Puppy diets are usually high in protein to insure body and muscle growth as well as a nice and smooth hair coat. Moreover, puppies are naturally attracted towards foods that contain a great amount of animal proteins. Contrarily to a popular belief, high protein diets have no deleterious effects on growth nor on kidneys. They also allow to reduce:

    * the level of starch (complex sugar found in cereals, potatoes,...) not always very well tolerated in young puppies,
    * the fat consumption, so the energy intake.

http://www.petngarden.com/dogs/dogs56.php

Protein levels in diets for large and giant breed dogs were once thought to play a major role in the incidence of developmental bone diseases in young dogs. The seminar presented sufficient data to completely refute this false hypothesis. High protein levels in the diet were found to have no effect on the incidence of disease. Low protein levels were found to play a major role in inhibiting the maximum developmental potential of individual dogs.

http://www.greatdanelady.com/articles/large_and_giant_breed_nutritional_research.htm

Of all the food nutrients, energy (caloric) intake and calcium appear to play the greatest roles in the potential for aggravating existing skeletal disorders.

http://www.canadasguidetodogs.com/health/nutritionarticle4.htm

I have many more links,but thought these may be enough to start with :p ;)

I realise that this thread is 10 years old but I wonder if your dogs made a full recovery from pano or if they experienced any (life long) problems? Also, did the dogs that had 10 to 2 feet fore and after 'straighten' up or did they stay that way?

Pano - if correctly diagnosed - should be self limiting.   Some will suffer longer than others, but normally it strikes at around 8 months, but by a year, it's gone and the affected animal should have no lasting problems.    Not for nothing has this been called 'growing pains' in my main breed where sadly it is all too often seen these days.   There is an hereditary involvement - it certainly appears to run in bloodlines in my breed at any rate. 

Quite different is premature closure of the growth plate which is where you may see some 'twisting' (front legs) if say the ulna closes and the radius carries on growing.   As happened with my hound who initially I'd gone to Pano with.   Full front to back x-ray showed no Pano, but premature growth plate closure in the ulna, both sides.   And yes, he does have more turn out (even for a Basset) than he should have although I don't think he's as bad as was originally expected.   There could be arthritis later on, which I was warned might happen, but so far, at 6.5 years, no sign.

http://www.petmd.com/dog/conditions/musculoskeletal/c_multi_panosteitis

I'm afraid the dog I started this thread about had to be put to sleep aged 21 months, and I'm sure it was down to the feeding. I now feed totally different. He bit somebody out of the blue, we saw a behaviourist vet (Professor Mills at Lincoln so top man) who instantly spotted that the was in constant pain, tolerated it when we, his owners, touched him, but when somebody else did, he did not. He was x-rayed and I can't remember all the details now but he had problems with his shoulders as well as pano. His front legs never straightened. We couldn't control the pain and had to say goodbye. I'm still in touch with several of the owners of the littermates that will turn 11 this month, and they are doing just fine. I had another litter from the same bitch a year later (i.e. 10 years ago this month) and none of them had any problems -I have two of them, plus pups and grandpups of them and from one other littermate. The second litter was fed on a more premium food although I can't remember what. These days I mainly feed raw.

Thank you for your reply and very sorry to hear that the outcome for you and your dog was not a good one.

>Full front to back x-ray showed no Pano, but premature growth plate closure in the ulna, both sides.

Thank you for your reply. That is very interesting and something to consider.