Gunnar, my 7 month old german shepherd seems to be having a bout with pano. I first noticed him with a slight limp about 2 months ago. It cleared up after a couple of weeks and then all of a sudden he started limping again about 2 or 3 weeks ago. It is his front right leg both times. Has anyone else had experience with this? Any suggestions? I have limited his exercise for the time being. I took him to the vet and he agreed that it looked like pano but we havent had any xrays done at this time.

Normal procedure is rest and painkillers.

Do you feed kibble - if so you may want to put him on adult rather than puppy.

My pup had this periodically but grew out of it at about 10 months. After the 1st time I diagnosed it myself - if you squeeze the middle of the affected bone, it will cause pain if it is pano - if not it's something else.

Even a mild pain killer will stop the limping, so make sure you do rest him but I always gave the painkiller and he stopped limping in 24/48 hrs max.

We recently added this supplement to our catalog

http://leerburg.com/77.htm

I'm getting good reports from customers using it for a variety of issues from joint pain to muscle soreness from injury.

I'm using this on Morgan (my older Corgi with CVI). The vet that formulated it says it's extremely helpful for any condition that "regular" vets typically prescribe aspirin or Rimadyl.

FYI

Thanks for the suggestions. When I took Gunnar to the vet he squeezed the bone and noticed some slight discomfort. I will try giving him an aspirin. The herbal formula sonds interesting. I will look into that.

My 11mth old shepherd is going through pano as we speak. He started at 6mths old and it started in his left leg then it stop then went into the right leg then stop now its back in left leg but now it has stop. I been giving him joint soother(glucosamine chondroitin msm pill, asprin(low dosage) and have him crated at periods of time during the day. When I go to work I put him in small outdoor run so he can still have enough room to stretch. Dont allow him to jump as much or run much as it could stress him out even though he may not show it and Pano could last up to 24mths old of age. So far he has stop on both and looks to be leveling out good in the front legs. He is still growing and going through alot. I also completely took him off of Puppy food at 7mths old and put him on Adult food which that didnt help either To me dog food didnt help at all just made his growth worsen in bones but now he is no longer limping since I took him off of Adult food, He is eating chicken, beef, veggies, salmon oil. I also read on here about the nutrition dogs could use so I am going to start a new food diet for my dogs. I hope you got the information you were looking for

I wanted to add that feeding a raw diet or a grain free kibble is something that seems to prohibit or reduce pano symptoms. Since we have changed over to raw, no more pano.

Our golden did the same thing too. It went off and on, switching legs for about a year. Then we switched to raw and it stopped. Don't know for sure if it was the food or it would have stopped anyway, but it did last quite a while. I got the opinion from 2 vets and they both said the same thing - exercise is fine as long as it's just walking and not hard and long. A medium pace, moderate length walk will not hurt them. If you don't give any exercise at all, they tend to flip out and run through the house in spurts and the vets said that's not the best for them. You can't keep them cooped up for days, so just do what they seem to be up for. As for pain killers, I would try the herb thing, but giving aspirin all the time isn't a good idea and this can go on for a while. I think most dogs do ok without pain killers - the vet said it's not a bad, sharp pain they are feeling, just more like soreness.

Thanks everyone for the suggestions and input. I still take him for short walks at a modest pace. I gave him an aspirin today, but I wont give him aspirin for a long period of time because I know it can cause other problems. He is eating Natural Balance dry kibble at the moment. It is for all life stages. I took him off the puppy food about a month ago. I may need to consider the raw diet though. My vet also said that Gunnar didnt seem to be in severe pain. He said he just noticed mild discomfort when he examined him.

I am happy to report that at least for now, Gunnar has stopped limping. He has been walking normal for the last few days. We went to the park today and he ran and chased the balls and splashed around in the puddles where it had rained yesterday. He had a great time.

 Quote: james moore

I am happy to report that at least for now, Gunnar has stopped limping. He has been walking normal for the last few days. ....

Yes, that is the nature of pano (from reading; I have no pano exerience): it can be both intermittent and "wandering" lameness.