Muscle Spasm

Is it possible for a dog to have a muscle spasm in her back leg?  Our four year old Siberian husky "rolled" out of bed and was hopping around the room the other night.  It wasn't a seizure and massaging her leg seemed to help her.  She was fine after a few minutes of massage and has been her usual self since then.  Her eyes looked fine; she's eating, drinking and doing everything she usually does.

However, being a paranoid pet owner, I just want to see if I should take her to the vet for something I might have missed (she was just at the vet in Dec/08) or if I'm over-reacting.  Thank you.

[dominosarah]

Im going to go and google this and see if i can find anything out.  Did she just get up real quick??  I wonder if there legs and arms ever go to sleep like ours do.  I think i will check that out too!!!!  Am glad she is fine today but it is always scary when something happens.  I dont think you are being paranoid.  I have those honors!!!!!!!!!!!

hugs,drool and beggin strips

[Ghilly]

In my opinion, we can NEVER overreact when it comes to the health and well-being of our furkids!  I find it far more upsetting when people who SHOULD react, DON'T.  :)

It is entirely possible that she pulled a muscle when she rolled out of bed.  Was it a human bed that she rolled out of?  Or a dog bed on the floor?  Either way it's possible that she pulled a muscle, but it's even more possible if it involved a drop to the floor.

Dogs are no different than we are.  If they make a sudden move in just the right (or wrong, as the case may be) way, they can pull a muscle just like we can.  The thing with dogs and cats is where humans would think nothing of favoring the injured part, dogs and cats will hide their pain and discomfort amazingly well, because instinct tells them that to show pain or weakness makes them prey to other animals.  So even if they're hurt, they're not likely to show it as readily as we would.

A friend of mind had a border collie puppy that she brought over to my house one morning when we still lived out in the country to play with Katie.  I had a nice fenced in yard around the house so that Katie could have a running place without having to worry about her being loose, and we turned the two dogs out and they played.  They ran and ran and ran, and it didn't look as though anything untoward had happened, until they ran up to us and Zip, the border collie, suddenly couldn't put down one of his hind legs!  We couldn't figure out what it was because as far as we saw, NOTHING HAPPENED!  We took him to the vet immediately because even though we gave him a thorough going-over and didn't see anything, we wanted the vet to check to see if maybe he had gotten a glancing bite from a rattlesnake or something horrible like that.  After a thorough exam, all the vet could come up with was that he must have turned or stretched just right, and had pulled a groin muscle.  He gave her some Robaxin to give to him and told her to keep him quiet for two weeks.  

Even if she seems fine, keep an eye on her and keep her quieter than normal for a week or so just to make sure that if she did pull a muscle, she doesn't do anything to reinjure it.  It could even be that she just "snapped" a tendon or something that hurt momentarily and then stopped.  I've done that myself, and it has hurt BADLY for a short time, and then returned to normal almost immediately afterward.  From your description I really don't think it's anything to worry about, but don't EVER feel that you've overreacted when it comes to worrying about your pets.  There's just no such thing!  :D

Ghilly

[dominosarah]

you have rattlesnakes there??  Are those bites usually fatal to a dog??  Just curious......

[Jaybay]

Here in SE Texas, it's copperheads and water snakes that are problematic.  I can't tell you the number of times I've pulled baby copperheads out of the pool after a heavy rain.  We've been very dry here in the past couple of months, and I found one in the pool skimmer a few days ago.  They're out looking for water now.

My husband got bitten on the finger by a copperhead when he was a young teenager.  His friend managed to get him to a hospital in about 20 minutes, but hubby was allergic to the antivenin.  Two months in the hospital and several fasciotomies later, he is badly scarred from the hand to past his elbow and lucky to be alive.

My cousin lives in Central Texas and got nailed in the foot by a rattle snake on her property several years ago.  While she wasn't allergic to the antivenin, she still has a great deal of pain from the associated nerve damage.  Being in a rural area, it took over an hour to get her to a local hospital.  She waited there for several hours while the local facility tried to find a better-equipped facility in San Antonio for her.  All those hours without treatment cost her a fair amount of functionality.

[peekawho]

Our dogs have all been bitten by copperheads.  Usually they are not fatal to adults and good size animals.

Jake was bitten his first night at home, as an 8 week old puppy!  Right in the throat!  We took him in and all they did was to give him Benadryl and antibiotics, and watched him for swelling for a couple of hours.

Finger bites are a problem because of circulatory issues.  They can be very difficult to heal.  

[ginger899]

Muscle spasms are incredibly painful! I can quite believe it wouldn't be possible for your dog to use the leg for a few moments, or even longer, if she had a muscle spasm. I had one in my arm once, which continued (painfully) for three days. I could not even bear anything to touch my lower arm, and it was impossible to straighten out my arm. In the end I went to a doctor who was also an acupuncturist. Within 5 minutes, using acupuncture, it was fixed! It never recurred.
If this problem (if it is a muscle spasm) does happen again with your dog, or does keep recurring (which it might never do) consider getting acupuncture treatment for your dog. This treatment has also been found to be beneficial for arthritis symptoms in dogs.

[lonewolf07]

Being a paranoid pet owner, I took the dog, Miss Puff, to the vet.  She is absolutely fine.  The vet said she probably had a muscle spasm the same way humans do.  She "rotated" her legs and Miss P did not react or cry in pain.  The vet's advice was to keep her quiet for about a week (try keeping a Siberian husky quiet in the snow) and to keep an eye on her but that the dog was fine.  She also recommended Robaxin if it happened again.

We don't have too many snakes out here in the winter; they don't seem to like the cold but I'll keep it in mind if Miss P ever travels to TX or other southern areas  = )

Thank you all for your comments.

ginger - our Akita has arthritis and we are trying to find someone who can do acupuncture on her.  I've had acupuncture myself and it worked extremely well.

[dominosarah]

Am glad Miss P is fine and you are not paranoid!!!

And to the others with snakes.........i would have to move.....I am deathly afraid of snakes.......we have garter(sp) snakes here, small in size but they look like Anacondas to me!!!!!

[Jaybay]

Would you believe I found another freakin' copperhead in the pool right after I posted yesterday?  This is getting beyond ridiculous!

Glad to hear Miss Puff is OK.  :-)

[dominosarah]

Do you have to touch them snakes???

[Ghilly]

We have copperheads here, but we don't see them too much.  We see coral snakes, water moccasins (we're almost right on the Colorado River) and rattlesnakes from time to time.  They do have a vaccine now for rattlesnake bites.  My dog is an inside-only dog, but I've been considering getting the vaccine for her because when you're out walking, all it takes is for you to take your mind off what the dog is doing for a split second and before you know it, they've found a snake and gotten themselves snakebit!  So I'm thinking it's better to be safe than sorry, and I may go for the vaccine this year for Katie.

Ghilly

[lonewolf07]

We have rattlesnakes mostly here in Ontario in the "good" weather - not in the winter.  We have greensnakes and garden snakes.  Our cat brought in a family of snakes once and we  took them back to the creek and released them before the cat could make a meal out of them.  I know this is the dog forum but the cat just sneaked in here with the snakes  = )

[Jaybay]

How could I forget about the coral snake?  Now that is one nasty fellow.  You might as well forget about trying to get help because you're a goner before 911 picks up the phone.  (How did this turn into a snake thread anyway?!)

I have no problem handling non-venomous snakes barehanded.  With two brothers, you either get friendly with the reptiles or end up in a straightjacket.  When the copperheads invade the pool, we use a big net to remove them, unless they've been trapped in the skimmers.  I'm always a bit cautious about emptying the skimmers for that reason.  Then we use a small gaff to lift out the basket and place it in another container for relocation.

Over the years I've learned that less chemical treatment seems to work better.  With our dogs on Sentinel, the fire ants take care of any stray flea larvae in the yard.  I'm constantly pulling wolf spiders out of the pool, and as long as we have a healthy supply of spiders, the rest of the yard tends to stay in balance.  The snakes keep down the rodent population, along with various birds of prey - many of whom have no problem snatching a whitewing dove right off the bird feeders.  It's really been interesting to watch this typical sunbaked square of a subdivision mature.  Now that trees and shrubs are 30 some years old, all kinds of wildlife has found its way here.  The area was nothing but rice fields for decades.

Anyway, snakes have their place in nature, venomous or not.  Most of the time they're pretty shy unless something upsets their territory.  We've had all kinds of gorgous snakes show up over the years - large black snakes, hog nose snakes, snakes we have no ID for.  Last year I saw one uncoil from my martin house and slither down the pole.  He was over 6 feet long and had a nice bulge from the large meal of baby martins he'd just downed.  Dammit!

[dominosarah]

what are wolf spiders??  Spiders dont bother me but the snakes give me the heebie jeebies........I get duck bumps just reading this!!!!  Coral snakes are that deadly??  None of these snakes will eat your dogs would they??

[margessy]

I HAVE A CHIHUAHUA WHO KEPT GETTING SEIZURES OR SPASMS ... I SEARCHED THE INTERNET FOR ANSWERS AS WELL AS ASK MY VET.   ANYWAY ... QUITE BY ACCIDENT I DISCOVERED THAT THESE SEIZURES WERE BROUGHT ON BY APPARENT ALLERGIES.   SHE LOVES TREATS AND OF COURSE WE ALWAYS GAVE HER A LITTLE PIECE OF WHATEVER WE WERE EATING.   THEN I FOUND THAT WHEN WE GAVE HER ANYKIND OF BREAD AND SOMETIMES OTHER TABLE FOOD SHE WOULD GET A SEIZURE LATER ON THAT DAY.   I NOW ONLY GIVE HER COOKED RICE MIXED WITH SOME KIND OF MEAT, CHICKEN OR WHATEVER MEAT (NOT ANYTHING SPICY) I HAVE LEFT OVER  AND FOR TREATS I GIVE HER A LITTLE PIECE OF HOT DOG.   IN SHORT ... I LIMIT HER TO COOKED RICE MIXED WITH SMALL PIECES OF MEAT AND CUT UP PIECES OF HOT DOG FOR TREATS.   I ALSO FEED HER SMALL QUANTITIES 2 TIMES A DAY.   SHE HAS NOT HAD A SEIZURE SINCE I ADOPTED THIS ROUTINE.   AMAZING ... ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!