appoligies in advance for the long post.
A friend has a 13 month old springer bitch back in august she noticed a dent in her head she consulted the vet and was told nothing to worry about since then things have got proggressively worse.
The current symptoms are-
muscle wastage all over skull
two large dents one either side of the skull.
stiffness of the jaw.
inability to open the mouth wide enough to pick up a ball.
imtermitant drooling.

The dog is happy in herself and in no discomfort the vet has put her on steriods and pain killers but given no real explanation as to what is wrong with her.
Past history is- the bitch is an unspayed female (working lines)
she had a very bad start to life and has already had surgery for a broken leg obtained as a puppy due to lack of calcium in the bones.
the litter was badly reared never wormed and very under norished they also had walking mange and ear mites, this puppy was the smallest and weekest of the litter and when i saw her at 9 weeks she looked more like a 5 wek old,these poor people ended up paying full price for this puppy just to give it a chance! any suggestions or know conditions which could apply gratefully recieved. :)

Hi sorry can't really give you any advice but I have friend whose dalmation has suffered from this, like your friends it was first noticed with a dent in the head and all the other things - tight jaw etc. She now no longer has a tight jaw but the muscle wastage on the skull has never recovered back so now she has 2 huge dents either side of the middle bone. She was given a good start in life and has a brilliant home with her family and like your friend a reason why this occured wasn't given, I think the vet said it was just one of those things. She has no pain with it and you wouldn't notice apart from the dents in her head. Hope your friends dog is better soon.

One of my dals developed this at the age of 8 years. It was diagnosed as 'idiopathic trigeminal myopathy'; that's vet-speak for 'something, probably a virus, has damaged the trigeminal nerve on the face and the muscle's wasted away'! Mine was lucky in that it was never bad enough to affect the opening of her mouth. It's never got any worse, and she's 14 now. None of her children (to my knowledge; certainly not the ones that I have) have been affected.

The dents are where the muscles that control the opening and closing of the jaw are located - with the muscles wasted you just have skin over the skull.

Heres some info on it

http://www.vetspecialists.co.uk/06_Animal_Welfare/Neurology_Facts/Myositis.html