Hiya everyone that gave me advice about my limping, now 6month Lab Murphy. HIs xrays went to the specialist and they have came back today with the bonus news of him having OCD in his left joint and a flap of cartliage also. I have now got to meet up with the specialist to discuss this matter. At the moment Murphy is on Rimadyl, only 1/2 tablet daily and luckly no side effects, 1 Cod Liver Oil with added Evening primrose tablet and 500mg Glucosamine tablet. He seems a lot easier not as stiff but still the annoying limp!! Cant believe how unlucky ive been when I bought Murphy. I travelled a long distance to buy him as I wanted Chocolate, his parents had great hip scores and now look what has gone wrong!! He is 6 months and weighs 24kg. He is a beauty, bless him, I cant believe he is the first pedigree dog ive ever bought and ive got a dud!!! Never mind.

If anyone has any advice, tips or suggestions please let me know.

Thanks for listening!!

Karan

Hi Murphy, sorry to hear that,what bad luck eh? But no way is he a dud!!!! Far from it. :)
You could try Syn-Flex,the liquid & purer form, which is reputed to be superior than tablets. Watch his weight & exercise. Read up on Rimadyl & make sure he gets the necessary checks/blood tests that are recommended for dogs taking it, especially the retriever breeds. The op for it can be very successful, so wait & see what the specialist says. HD is just one of the things to look out for, OCD is something else. There is just no guarantee when you buy a young pup that he will be from these & other things, the best breeders can do is breed from sound dogs & even doing that cannot always guarantee disease free pups.
Christine, Spain.

Hi Karan & Murphy

Sorry to hear your news.

Please try Synflex on him. It works brilliantly on my 34-21 hipped Lab. He still leads a full working life.

Good luck

Julia & Hooligans

Hi Karan,
That's a shame. But at least now you know what you have to deal with, rather than wondering.

And please don't think he's a dud - these things can happen in the best families!
:)

Hi Karan.
OCD is very common in Labs, but is operable. It occurs in all ball and socket joints, primarilly, the elbow, shoulder, stifle and hock. The cartiledge that has broken off is called a "joint mouse" there can also be dips in the bone that cause the same thing, these pieces moving around the joint space cause the pain and so the dog limps. The surgery involves flushing out these pieces and so the inflammation reduces and the condition improves. Now I don't know about refering as my friends dog was operated by our vet, and that was 10yrs ago!! She had it severely in her stifle and made a good recovery and is now 12yrs old! I also know of a working Lab that had it in his shoulder, was operated on, and still leads a FULL WORKING life, he works tirelessly throught the picking up season and is great. Don't give up on him, if he were my dog and his leg fell off, he would still be the best dog in the world!
Dawn.

Similar things can happen to people also, a friends husband had a mouse around his shoulder which had to be removed. I wonder if over nutrition can increase the incidence in predisposed animals.

Mouse?

Mouse is the name for the little flaps of cartilidge, chaliepud.

Sorry to hear the news Karan but it really is so common now. I'm inclined to agree with Brainless that something is causing it. I accept the heridity thing but feel there is more that that involved somewhere. It's one of the reasons I'm so against adding supliments to a puppies diet.

I've known several working Labs with trouble. Dogs from proven working lines where you would not expect problems like this. A working Lab should come from generations of dogs with good legs or so you would have thought.

Sometimes life is cruel but there it is. My "World Beater" working Lab of a few years ago developed epilepsy at 18 months so my dreams all went up in smoke but she was so special I would never have changed her for all that. They are never duds Karan, not when we have had a chance to get use to the idea however we might feel at the moment.

Very best wishes, John

Karan

Sorry to hear the news but at least it is treatable and with lots of TLC Murphy will be as good as new ! Bless him he is not a Dud just unfortunate ! MB seems to be on the mend through rest and we are gradually increasing the excercise , very gradually and so far cross finhgers the limping has subsided. She is lucky and we do feel for you and Murphy. MB and the other girls send him big slobbery Labrador kisses :D

Lucy

Hi Karen, Sorry to hear about Murphy, I have a fear that I too will be soon in the same situation with my lab Charlie.  His limp on his front leg disappeared about 2 weeks ago so bravely attempted to show at Blackpool, and would you believe it, it came back.  Back to the vets on Monday for a 2nd check up.  We had hoped that plenty of rest and taking it easy would help, but, it doesnt look good.  He's just 6 months old too, where did you get him from as he is chocolate too.   There are no duds only beautiful loving and loyal labs, my life would be missing a little bit of something without him and the others Clara and Sally, so he may not be perfect but I love him.  Just have to start again and try and get one to show.  Hope all goes well.

Hi, not new to the site, but never the less, new to this problem. My 20 month Chocolate lab Rollo developed a limp a few weeks ago, it lasted a few days and went, with the help of tablets from the vet. Yesterday when he got up, he could hardly put paw to ground. The vet has now booked him in for an Xray and, if required, a trip to a specialist for a joint examination. The vet suspects OCD and we are making sure Rollo does not exercise as much as possible. Problem is our 14 month chocolate bitch Coco winds him up and they like to play together. Well, we have read as much information as we could absorb in the last 24hrs and have ordered both Green Lipped Muscle and Glucosamine tablets, which we will now put both labs on, as soon as they arrive. Like Karen we travelled to find Rollo and he is the most hansom lab i have ever seen. As we are in our late fifties we decided to have both dogs neutered/spayed in an attempt to be responsible owners (have had labs since a child). Could that have had any affect on this condition ?. As both dogs are on James Wellbeloved senior food, is it too rich, and again could that be a factor ?. I read in this thread that Synflex is another good product, but can we go overboard with remedies and make the problem worse ?. Again, like Karen, we ensured the hip score of the parent dogs were good and that the pedigree was all in order. We had both dogs examined by our vet as soon as we could, these things are not evident at the early stages. 

Hi there

My Golden Retriever boy has OCD. The symptoms exhibited at 6 months in his right elbow resulted in an operation to clean the head of the joint up and although he will no doubt have quite bad arthritis when he's older, he is 5 years old this month and has a full life.

The ortho specialist who operated on him said he almost always sees the condition in large young male dogs, usually those with a bouncy personality, and even though they had to operate on the joint causing pain, the high resolution x-rays they took, showed that he had OCD in several of his joints, not just the one causing pain.

The road to recovery was really long for us (and my dog) as he was so difficult to keep calm and still! He had several relapses whereby he would do something stupid and then put himself back a couple of weeks. Just recently, he was starting to limp again, so more x-rays (at our regular vet this time) and he is now showing some arthritis in one of his hips (stiff sometimes). He will now be on Metacam and joint supplements for the rest of his life. Thankfully, he is fit and well again now, which is a blessing.

I just wanted to make the point really, that this condition must be made worse when a large boned dog is too bouncy or is exercised too much. When they spend ages having rough play with another dog, I consider that just as damaging to developing joints too. The specialist said the OCD was not something the dog was born with, but he had the pre-disposition to develop the condition, aggrevated by his bouncy self (he's a big boy also at around 40 - 42 kg). He advised that he not be used for breeding (he is the son of a 2x Crufts CC winner!) and I would have liked to show him but he is now castrated, which wasn't done until he was 2 and fully developed.

So my advise is that if anyone out there has a large-boned adolescent male dog, not to let them do too much jumping/hard core wrestling or anything which could cause impact on those delicate developing joints. We tried to do everything right with our boy, but he was like a whirling dirvish most of the time, thus the length of time of took for him to recover from the op.

To the OP, please don't think your dog is a dudd. My boy is just so beautiful, not a brain cell in his head, but is the most loving and loyal dog you could get. I love him so much, he would never be second best to me, he just wrecked his joints at the crucial time in his development.

It's such a difficult thing to get the balance right with these young dogs, they have so much energy to burn!

Good luck with your boy, I hope he gets sorted soon.
Tanya