Has anybody here had a dog with an Iliopsoas Muscle Tear? Toni came in Saturday and was moving rather slowly. She was reluctant to jump off the bed to go to her crate. When I returned after running errands an hour later, she had significant swelling in her flank area. I iced it for 20 minutes and the swelling went down.

She has never limped when on the flat - just a slight hitch when going up the stairs and when attempting to jump on the bed.

Today the swelling returned. It's hard - feels like a charlie horse muscle spasm. There is also bruising on her belly in the pelvic area.

I am thinking that when she was playing with Drift she somehow splayed her hips pulling the "groin" muscle and the bruises are just coming up.

She is on activity restriction- not allowed to go outside with the others. She's not in any obvious pain, and if there hadn't been swelling and bruising, I wouldn't even know anything was wrong with her.

I was just wondering if anyone here has an canine athlete that has had this injury, and what you did about it.

Thanks!!

--Kelly and Toni

None personally.

What is it with all the Malinois??? Quit hurting yourselves, you spazes!

None here either but I feel for ya. Nothing worse then one of our dogs on crate restriction when they ARE NOT in pain..........

Kelly, I'd get her to Dr. Julia Tomlinson ASAP. When it comes to this type of injury, it could be a number of things and the dogs don't have the good sense to keep themselves under restriction long enough to heal if it is a tear or sprain.
http://www.tcrehab.com/

Thanks, Cindy. This is the Dr. that treated Rush's injury isn't it? I will give them a call and see what they think.

How's she doin, Kell?

We went to our normal vet on Friday as the swelling was still really pronounced (it was about fist sized). After some X-rays we determined that there were no broken bones and it appeared to be a soft tissue injury.

The vet didn't figure it was a muscle tear though. She thinks that the bruising and swelling were the cause of "direct trauma" to the flank.

After questioning Paul (ok, it was more like grilling and would have involved water boarding if I had the tools...) he said that Toni had not been in the horse pasture so we ruled out a kick from a horse.

Then he said that Toni and Drift were running around like idiots (like they do most days) and were over by the truck most of the time he was outside with them. I did some investigating and found that the hitch receiver on the truck is exactly the same height as Toni's right flank. I figure that Drift must have somehow slammed Toni into the truck hitch sideways. Sounds impossible until you see them play together....

So Toni spent the weekend on restricted activity which totally pissed her off. Drift is now wearing the bark collar outside - for some reason she thinks she can't run and play with the bark collar on

The swelling has reduced to a mere bump - the bruising was gone by Saturday thanks to Arnica gel Toni is still on light restriction and not allowed to go out with Drift yet (she seems to be OK with that as she has me all to herself when she does go out).

Life has almost returned to normal Deep breath - ready for the next crisis....

--Kel