Okay, I took my almost 6-month-old puppy to the vet yesterday (for an evaluation of a wobbly right, rear leg and an awkward gait) and was told that he is growing too fast and his rear legs are very sore. That is understandable but then the vet asked me what I have been feeding -- I told her raw food -- her suggestion was to take the puppy off the raw food diet and put him on "Ol' Roy" (she mentioned it by name) for a while to slow down his growth.

It has been my understanding that raw food promotes slower, more gradual growth than kibble...?

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Thanks - Mike

Run very far away from this vet. OL' ROY ??????? Good grief, this vet must be needing some business in the future from sick dogs. Sorry but this vet fell off the nutrition truck a long time ago. Stick with the raw....

All I know is that my pups hit really bad pano (being on kibble) around 6 months old to the point they didn't want to even stand up. I switched them to raw and haven't had a problem since then. They're now 14 months old.

Karmen - those were my thoughts too. My puppy doesn't look at fat to me (he weighed exactly 60 pounds and he will be 6 months old next week) so I asked the vet about just feeding him a little less. She said the QUALITY of the food was making him grow too fast.... :rolleyes:

Angela - I had the same Pano experience with my last GSD. He wouldn't even want to stand up for 2 weeks at a time (when he reached 2 years old he didn't have the problem anymore). I always fed him kibble because I didn't know any better at that time.

Mike.

My female GSD, Roxy, went through the same thing. Around 4-6 months she was wobbly in the rear. She was growing fast as well, despite the fact that I have her on a raw diet and I was actually giving her only about 4% of her body weight per day (instead of the recommended 5-10% for puppies). She was very lean, but just had long legs.

Her recent hip x-rays show that her hips are in the very good to excellent range.

Both the vet and my trainer suggested that it was just her "getting used to" her legs. She's 11 months old now and all signs of the wobbling are gone. We'll, of course, get her hips x-rayed at least one or two more times, but I'm not expecting any problems.

Thanks Stacie, I hope that it is just a puppy thing. I'm glad that your pup is doing fine now.

My wife tells me that I'm paranoid (she's probably right) but I'm very attached to my little guy and want to do everything I can for him.

Years ago I had a male GSD with a right rear leg that was always very wobbly. He seemed to get around fine but I never had him X-Rayed so I don't know if it was HD or not.

I would keep to the raw diet but feed more RMBs I also increase the amount of Vit C. Reduction of protein is the key and that's probably why your vet suggested Ol' Roy it probably doesn't have any. I too have gone through pano on 3 puppies who have never had a bit of kibble pass by their lips. The mother has been on raw diet since she was 5 months old and is now 5 years old. Two puppies went through it at about 9 or 10 months of age and the now the other is showing signs at 12 months of age. I kept the pups lean, one of them is lanky and I just started to increase his food to put a little fat on his body to help during these colder months, (they are kenneled with house visits)and now shows symptoms of panno. I've talked with others that have fed raw and have run into panno with their puppies too. The symptoms are not to the point that they don't want to get up and do things, in fact I have to keep them crated to keep the activity down. During this time I just increase RMBs and veggy slop until the symptoms go away which was about 2 weeks.
Good luck.

Donna

Donna, so you're saying feed him more bones and less actual meat to decrease protein intake? The mainstay of my dog's diet has been chicken quarters (usually 2 a day but lately I have cut back to 1 and 1/2). I have followed the breeder's recommendations for feeding and I wouldn't know what bones to give him and how much.

Are there any supplements that might help?

Check out Raw Dog Ranch, it is an awesome sight.
http://www.rawdogranch.com/rawdiet.htm

With leg quarters there really is more meat than bone, pups need more bone. I gave mine chicken necks, turkey necks, chicken backs. Leg quarters maybe a few days a month.

Yes, that's exactly it. You can feed chicken necks, wings or beef bones ie ribs, turkey necks. As far as how much... if you have a kitchen scale weigh the amount you are currently feeding. One leg quarter... probably between 12oz and 1 lb? If you don't have a source for other types of bones, which you really should try and locate anyway, cut off a lot of the meat on the leg quarters and feed the bones. Freeze the meat again for later use. Or... buy whole chickens cut off the breast meat for yourself and feed the rest of the carcass to your dog.
I increase the amount of Vit C. If it's really bad maybe an asprin to help ease the pain.
Donna