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You're out for a regular walk with your feline friend when suddenly, it happens: your four-legged companion starts to limp and comes to a halt, standing on three legs. We'll delve into what might have caused your dog to suddenly become lame and how you should respond to limping in dogs.
Symptoms: What signs are present in a limping dog?
The clinical presentation of limping can vary greatly. Depending on the extent and location, different body regions may be affected. Limping can occur on one side or both sides and may develop acutely (suddenly) or chronically (long-term).
Other symptoms may accompany the key symptom of limping. If your dog has suffered a trauma, you may often notice swelling of the affected tissue. If your feline friend has injured one or more legs, it is likely to limp and may experience significant pain.
If limping persists for an extended time, the surrounding musculature loses mass (muscle wasting, muscle atrophy). This is because the affected dogs are less active and have trouble getting up and lying down, particularly if joints are involved.
Carefully checking a dog’s affected leg helps identify issues causing lameness and ensures timely treatment
Diagnosis: How is a dog’s limping diagnosed?
Before any examination, your vet will ask you, among other things, whether your dog could have been injured or taken any medication recently.
Following the owner interview, the vet conducts a clinical lameness examination to investigate the cause more thoroughly. They will watch your dog and gently palpate it, being mindful of possible thickening of the leg or an open wound.
Then, the vet will assess your dog’s gait. This is crucial to categorise the limp into different grades and types, influencing the approach to treatment.
Forms of Limping in Dogs
Specialists distinguish among three types of lameness: support limb lameness, swing limb lameness, and mixed forms.
While support limb lameness affects the weight-bearing phase of movement, swing limb lameness impacts the movement of the limb. If your dog feels pain when bearing weight on its leg and limps, it likely has support limb lameness.
If it can bear weight on its paw normally but performs a shortened stride, it suffers from swing limb lameness. However, vets often observe mixed forms.
To subsequently grade the severity of the limp into four grades and thus better assess the treatment and prognosis, the vet will use the following information:
Grade
Extent of Clinical Signs
1
Gait is only slightly restricted.
2
Gait is disrupted. Your dog is bearing weight on its limb.
3
Gait is disrupted. Your dog is bearing little weight on the limb.
4
Gait is disrupted. Your dog is not bearing weight on the limb at all.
If the vet cannot find a precise explanation during the lameness examination, they will subsequently conduct a neurological examination. This involves testing the function of individual nerves, consciousness, and your dog’s spatial orientation.
Physiotherapy helps dogs rebuild muscle strength and supports faster recovery after injury or surgery
Therapy: How is a dog’s limping treated?
Due to the many possible causes, specialists cannot generalize the treatment for a dog’s limping. It depends on the underlying disease, the extent, and the overall condition of your dog.
Certain diseases require surgical interventions. Vets recommend surgery if your pet has suffered a disc herniation or cruciate ligament tear. Alternatively, these conditions can also be treated conservatively, namely with pain medications and plenty of rest.
If your dog has a muscle injury, it, in turn, requires physiotherapy. The physiotherapist massages the muscle group and promotes healing in the affected areas.
Causes: What triggers limping in dogs?
There can be several reasons behind your dog’s limp – such as torn claws or foreign objects lodged in its pads. To give you a better overview, the following two tables summarise common causes of lameness in dogs:
Neurological Diseases
If your four-legged friend has an illness affecting the peripheral (PNS, nerves outside the CNS) or central nervous system (CNS, brain and spinal cord), it suffers from what’s known as a neurological disease. The nerves can be primarily or secondarily affected (due to the ailments of other organs):
An infectious disease caused by the single-celled Toxoplasma gondii
Orthopaedic Diseases
Medical specialists refer to diseases that disrupt the musculoskeletal system as orthopaedic diseases. These include injuries to muscles and ligaments as well as joint diseases.
Trauma (injury) often leads to dogs limping or becoming lame. However, other reasons like fractures or strains can also bring about orthopaedic lameness in dogs:
Condition
Characteristic
Osteoarthritis
degenerative and chronic joint wear
Lyme Disease
tick-transmitted bacterial infection caused by Borrelia burgdorferi
Medial Coronoid Process Fracture (MCP) in the Elbow
often affects larger breeds, becoming apparent in young dogs
Isolated Processus Anconeus (IPA)
frequently affects large breeds
Cruciate Ligament Rupture
often affects large breeds, typically the cranial cruciate ligament
Hip Dislocation
often as a result of car accidents
Patellar Luxation (Dislocation of the Kneecap)
common in small breeds (e.g., Yorkshire Terriers)
Legg-Calvé-Perthes Disease (Avascular Necrosis of the Femoral Head)
seen in young small breeds (e.g., Yorkshire Terriers)
Muscle Contractures (Permanent Muscle Shortening)
often observed in hunting and working dogs
Osteochondrosis Dissecans (Avascular Necrosis of the Bone)
due to impaired bone ossification
Bicipital Tenosynovitis (Inflammation of the Tendon Sheath)
most often affects medium/large breeds.
Prognosis: Is limping in dogs curable?
Whether your dog will be able to walk normally in the future depends on the cause and severity of the limping. Certain diseases can be treated well, either conservatively or surgically. Additionally, physiotherapeutic measures can relieve symptoms.
However, late complications such as pain or spontaneous occurrences of limping can occur. Therefore, heed your vet’s advice and be patient. Nerve diseases or orthopaedic issues can sometimes take a long time to resolve.
Important Note: The content provided for informational purposes only and is not intended to replace professional veterinary advice, diagnosis or treatment. If you have any questions or concerns about your pet's health, please always consult a licensed veterinarian.
Franziska G., Veterinarian
At the Justus-Liebig-University of Giessen I was extensively trained as a veterinarian and was able to gain experience in various fields such as small animal, large animal and exotic animal medicine as well as pharmacology, pathology and food hygiene.
Since then, I have been working not only as a veterinary author, but also on my scientifically driven dissertation. My goal is to better protect animals from pathogenic bacterial organisms in the future.
Besides my veterinary knowledge, I also share my own experiences as a happy dog owner and can thus understand and enlighten fears and problems as well as other important questions about animal health.
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