Heavy Panting, Shaking, Whining, Limping

Question
Hello. My 13 yr old Maltese has been having some strange problems lately. For the past week or so, he will start panting heavily, shake, and whine. Sometimes, but not all the time, he will limp, and today he actually did not use one of his back legs when walking (He is walking fine now). His behavior has also changed. He will scratch at his water dish, doors, anything when he thinks no one is home. We brought him to the vet last week and they said he seems healthy, and they prescribed 50mg Tramadol, with the instruction to give him a 1/4 tablet twice a day (as needed, I assumed). I'm not sure that this is helping. Also, it seems that when he is outside, these symptoms are less pronounced. What could be causing this? He has been healthy for years and still eats well. Any advice is welcome.

Thanks,

Mike

Answer
These are pain or stress symptoms; I, like the vet, am going with pain since you are also seeing limping, etc. The Tramadol is for pain, and, yes, I would use it "as needed". You might try putting him on glucosamine/chondroitin twice a day and that should help a bit, too. I recommend Cosequin; all of these products are NOT created equal. We have noticed a definite difference in products when we have switched brands. Also, make sure that you are not feeding a product that contains corn. When we put our arthritic ol' guy on a corn-free diet and changed his glucosamine/chondroitin supplement, we saw a decided improvement. Here are more helpful hints:  http://www.dogaware.com/arthritis.html

I would also highly recommend that you take your dog to a veterinary chiropractor. Our dogs do agility, and we have found a chiro vet to be much more helpful for our dogs than our regular GP vet when they have physical/structural issues such as your dog seems to have.
http://www.avcadoctors.com/search_for_avca_certified_doctor.htm