Yesterday my 13 year old pit/boxer mix decided to jump off a deck a bit over four feet high and landed badly, ended up breaking one (maybe two) bones in his neck. Currently he's resting on meds, I'm hoping for the best. Vet says she's never seen a break like this one and to wait a couple days and see how he does. At the moment he can not get up off the floor. Anyone else ever deal with this type issue? Pic 1 puppy - Pic 2 maybe 10 years old - Pic 3 today
Awe, poor pup. I'd say give him some time and see of he makes some progress. Is he not moving because of pain or is he limp, like he is paralyzed?
X-rays did not show any spinal cord damage, just one broken bone for certain and maybe a second broken bone. He can move all his legs, just can't manage to get up yet. Tough to get him to eat anything or drink water.
No real advice except to get a foot stool to get the food/water dish up off the floor...it might make eating/drinking easier. I hope your dog gets better.
I had something similar with my big dog a few months ago. I don't know exactly what he did, but he hurt his back or his hip and could barely move. It was a miserable few days waiting on him hand and foot because he hurt so bad he couldn't move. He'd growl and bite at me when I had to help him get up because of the pain. All you can do is keep him comfortable and as immobile as possible. You don't really want to give him pain meds because that will encourage him to move around, which might slow down the healing or worse, cause him to injure himself further. After a few days should show signs of improvement.
Oh, and don't worry too much about the eating. While it seems odd that a dog wouldn't want to eat, remember, he HURTS, and that's killing his appetite. Dogs are not like humans, having to eat every few hours. In the wild go several days without eating so he'll be fine.
He can go 3 or 4 days without eating. They need to drink thought so keep some water flowing through him. I haven't had to deal with a broken neck but we have had some pretty beat up dogs as rescues. They are pretty resilient. Keep him still for a week or so and see what happens.
Our 12 year old Pyrenees had an episode where he just couldn't get up on his back legs..., after an MRI and other test it was determined that he had some swelling of a disc pushing on the spinal cord. Steroids / anti inflammatory drugs got the swelling down and after several days he just got up and started walking. Was very difficult to see him that way and wondered if he would ever walk again. Might want to see about getting him on some steroids and other anti inflammatory drugs. Hope things get better for him!
Good point. Caesar's bowls were about 18" off the ground. I wanted it so he could just walk up to them and eat/drink without hurting his neck.
It's more than that. Especially if they eat fast. Their food can twist up their guts somehow... I don't really understand the mechanics of it all... but it's lethal.
It's called BLOAT, and it actually lists "eating from an elevated bowl" as a cause. http://pets.webmd.com/dogs/gastric-volvulus-bloat-dogs#1
I reckon it depends on how they define "elevated". Caesar couldn't reach a regular dog bowl after he was about 8 months old. With the taller one he still had to angle his head down, but it made it so he could reach it without having to stretch his legs out and lay his chest on the ground.
Elevated means the dog has to lift his head above his chest to eat. If his head is slightly lower or inline with his chest than the bowl is not "elevated". It's also the least likely cause of the bloat. Elevated activity just after eating is the leading cause. Water is the bigger danger than food. We lost a lab who simply drank water and as he laid down the water sloshed hard enough in his stomach to cause the stomach to rotate and twist the exit shut and cut off blood flow. He was at the vet in post op for an unrelated minor surgery when it happened. He survived the surgery to relieve the bloat but days later while recovering at home a portion of the stomach had had it's blood flow cut off long enough to die and it ruptured spilling his stomach content into his abdomen.