Two yr old cocker/King Charles cross spaniel.

Saturday morning she was fine, went for a walk as normal. Left her in her crate for a few hours in the afternoon (family shopping trip) then when we got back I let her out into the garden. When she came back in I lifted her up to clean her wet paws and she let out a yelp.

Since then she has been really lethargic and yelps when touched (although we haven’t been able to pinpoint exactly what is hurting her and we have done visual checks of pads etc).

Took her to the vet on Monday morning and they checked her over – they couldn’t find anything specific (although she didn’t like it when she was touched around her neck). She was given some pain killers and told to rest (no walkies)! for a week then go back.

Last night she was sat on my knee and I lifted her off really gently and she let out another big yelp and wasn’t happy at all.

She is eating/drinking/toileting as normal

First time we’ve had anything like this and feeling pretty useless – any one had anything similar and if so, what was the outcome?

My little dog had a back problem and I was given the same advice by the vet – rest, 10min on lead walks for a week.
She was really struggling with that so I took her to a dog physio. She has also been to an osteopath. She is fighting fit now. I don’t know if or how much they helped but she is all better now and it felt the right thing to do to actively help her rather than just wait for things to right themselves.
I can give you contact details if interested. I am in Scotland so don’t know if any good for you. There is a growing number of dog chiropractors, physios and osteopaths so you should be able to find one local to you. Might be worth a shot.
Good luck anyway, hope you pup recovers.

I’d say if not seeing an improvement in 48 hours of painkillers and still obviously painful then I might suggest going back earlier than 1 week.

She may need more investigation including bloods etc to determine the cause. Intermittent yelping, pain and lethargy can have a lot of causes but the neck pain suggests may need more investigation if not settling.

Causes could include disc-related neck pain (reasonably common in Spaniels), ear infection (presume the vet had some sort of look at ears so prob unlikely), and the curve ball is syringomyelia, a brain condition common in Cavaliers, that can cause neck pain, but usually wouldn’t come on so suddenly. As per above, tests including xrays would be a good idea if things don’t resolve. In my hands, painkillers with the active ingredient Carprofen seem to work the best if it is disc-related but that is just my experience.

One of our previous dogs, 4 year old Basset hound suffered from a disc torsion due to exuberant play. It took a long while to diagnose because of the inflammation / symptoms – serious steroids / painkillers to reduce the inflammation and then chiropractor / acupuncture to help restore the function to his back legs. Some vets were poor at diagnosis and proposing some pretty serious surgical interventions. He lived happily until he was 13.

My Cocker had a disc related issues and the symptoms are slightly similar but he was expressing discomfort around his back.

Poorly Spaniel

Hope he gets better soon.