dragging right rear leg

I have a 3 year old female schnauzer that give birth to a litter of pups a little over a week ago. We took the pups and mom to the vet 3 days after delivery.  The pups checked out fine and but mom had an infection in her uterus from not expelling all the after birth. The vet put her on antibiotics and gave her 2 shots one in each of her hip (area) shortly afterwards my husband notice her right rear paw was knuckled under her leg and she was dragging it. I called the vets office back and asked questions about this specifically if they could have hit a nerve with the shot and the vet answered no; there was no way that she could have. I had to take mom back a few days later (for the infection) and at that time I saw the the a different  in practice with my vet. She stated that she thought a nerve might have been hit the the needle and asked me to take her for a second opinion. The vet I chose for the second opinion stated that she also though the needle had hit a nerve and as long as the nerve was not severed that the feeling would eventually come back.; as well as she had never seen or heard of anything like this. There were xrays taken of her spine and right hip and no abnormalilites were found. I am very upset about my dog we have a total a three schnauzers and plan on keeping two of the pups. Do you have any suggestions for treatment or should we take her to yet another vet. We are about an hour away from a vet school and could do this easily but I am not sure if even they could handle this or if there is a quick fix for this problem. If there is a window of opportuniuty for this being correct without permanment damage we do not want it to pass. Is is so sad to see her limping around.

[Aleda M Cheng, D.V.M., C.V.A]

Bruising or damaging a nerve from an intramuscular injection is not uncommon.  There could also be some nerve compression from inflammation secondary to the injection.  The chances of the nerve being severed are slight, and even if the nerve was severed it would most likely just have been a small branch.  Unfortunately, nerves take a very long to heal.  Nerves heal at a rate of 1/8 of an inch per month.

You may be able to speed things up a bit by decreasing the inflammation around the area if it is just inflamed.  You can do this by using hot compresses, and steroids or non-steroidal anti-inflammatories, although the medications can be passed to her puppies through nursing.  

Physical therapy and acupuncture may also help.  
A visit to your local vet school certainly wouldn't hurt!