I wish it was that easy...
Earl has been having a few episodes where he seems to be in a great deal of pain. The first one happened about 5 months ago and Heidi called me saying Earl seemed to be in a great deal of pain and didn't want to move. I had her take him into the vet to be checked out. They looked him over and did a bunch of range of motion tests and felt that he was having some pain in his front shoulder area but they couldn't determine the exact location. They ended up giving him some pain meds and told us to come back in if he didn't improve. After about a day of rest he was back to normal.
Yesterday Heidi called me at work and said that Earl was having another "episode".
His symptoms include:
Crying out when putting weight on his front end (going down stairs)
Hunched back
Sitting and not wanting to move
Glassy eyes (I'm attributing these to pain)
Sleeps a lot (again probably attributed to pain)
Still eating and drinking water
I've noticed Earl has slowed down a bit on our runs and is sleeping a bit more than usual (he is getting older).
I'd love to figure out what is going on with him but I'm not sure what the vet can do if we can't locate the exact place that is causing him discomfort.
Anyone ever dealt with anything like this? Sound like the beginning of arthritis? Could this be back or neck pain instead of shoulder pain?
Out of all of my dogs Earl is the last dog to show any pain even if he has really injured himself so it worries me that when these episodes occur he seems to be in so much pain.