Nellie has been at work with hubby all week as usual, then had a day at home with me today. She has had to laze around a bit today as I have been busy with work, but I took a break at 3pm to take her for a walk.

And she was so unbelievably stiff! As we walked down the street I noticed - and its easier to see, now she has been fully stripped again, she was a bit curly before - that her hips do not seem to flex independently of her back at all. She looked like a little wooden table, with a wooden leg at each corner!

She did a little jump for joy at one point, and she pinged up off the ground with her back and legs perfectly rigid. It was quite bizarre. After about 20 mins, she seemed to get more movement through her pelvis and she looked less like a wooden puppet, but her shoulders still looked stiff.

She appears quite happy and not in pain, just extremely inflexible. I had her on cod liver oil for a while, maybe I should start that again? Or try Cortaflex for dogs (I know a supplier)? Or maybe corn oil?

Any thoughts? I wonder if her enthusiastic activity during the week is making her muscles stiff?

If she was mine I would make a quick appointment at my vets for a quick check up...but...

I'm not really one to go in or alternative therapy.  If something is wrong I want it cured quickly, effectively and in a tried and tested method!  However I used to look after a kennel of cavaliers.  There was one old girl who had started to slow down and was becoming increasingly stiff.  The owner brought her a magnetic collar.  The improvement was amazing.  In just a couple of days she was running instead of waddling, by the end of the week she was jumping on top of her cage!  Ok, she would never normally do anything that naughty, but I couldn't tell her off, I was speechless.  It was a metre high jump.  She had to be helped up stairs just 7 days before.

For the cost of them must be worth a try?

One of my Weimaraner bitches is nearly 12 and I give her Omega 3 fish oil capsules every day. The main difference in composition between cod liver oil and fish oil is that cod liver oil has higher levels of vitamin A and D I think. 

Thanks, Heinricke and Justine.

She had a whole battery of tests done back in March, when her pain was so bad that she couldn't walk far.  After various x-rays and bloods coming up with nothing they were running out of ideas - just as they were about to refer her to a vet hospital, on her third course of steroids, she came right again.  She's had very brief episodes occasionally since, but none lasting more than a few days, when we keep her quiet at home until she rallies again.

She's a bit of a mystery.  I have a vet referral to a behaviourist for her nervous aggression - when she comes next week, hopefully she might be able to help identify a specific point for the pain (away from the stress of the vet surgery where the dog goes rigid).  I'm wondering if it isn't the main cause of her unpredictability and aggression, and the behaviourist has a hunch that it may be adhesions following her spay last year.  I just don't know what to think anymore!! 

how old is she?