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10 year old dog

I have a 10 year old cocker spaniel.  He pulled a muscle in his shoulder this morning running across the back yard.  He already takes a low dose aspirin for his arthritis, can I give him more for the pain and little bit of swelling?  I cannot afford to take him to the vet until next week.  Thanks.
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441382 tn?1452810569
I am SO glad to hear that Maddie is doing so much better!  I'm glad that I was able to be of help to you.  :)

Ghilly
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Avatar universal
thank you very much for you answer.  I did call the vet and he told me the same things you did.  I did get him to lay on his bed for two days.  He really enjoyed the massage.  We have always massaged our dogs, since they were puppies.  Maddux, being 10 is the old man, now.  His housemates are a 2  1/2 year old Golden and a 5 mo. old German Shorthair Pointer and Choc. lab mix.  The golden ran Maddux crazy until we got the puppy.  Now the two younger dogs drive each other crazy and leave Maddie alone.  Th suggestion to put him on a leash to take him outside was great, he loves to chase squirrels!  So thank you and keep up the good work.  
Maddie's shoulder is feeling better and he's walking much better, now.
Helpful - 0
441382 tn?1452810569
I wouldn't give him any more aspirin than you're already giving him.  Cocker Spaniels are small dogs, you don't want to give him any more than you have to because you could seriously damage his stomach.

What I would do, since you know what his problem is, and you know how he did it, is to just keep him quiet for the next couple of days.  I would ice it down every couple of hours for tonight, and then tomorrow I would switch to putting heat on it.  With an injury such as this, you always use ice for the first 24 hours and then heat after that.   If you have a heating pad, wrap it in a towel so that he's not directly on the heating pad and make him lay on it for about 30 minutes at a time.  DON'T LEAVE THE HEATING PAD ON WHEN HE'S NOT LAYING ON IT.  Sorry, I'm not taking you for an idiot or anything, I just want to stress to anyone who might be reading that it isn't good to have a plugged-in, turned-on heating pad just laying around the house unlessl it's actually in use.  :)

Continue to give him his low-dose aspirin that you already give him, and instead of just letting him outside to do his business, put him on a leash and walk him.  There are a couple of reasons you should do this, the first being that you don't want him to take off running after a bird or something and do MORE damage, and the second is that with the leash, you can control the amount of movement he imposes on the shoulder while it's injured.  If he has to go down a lot of stairs, carry him instead of letting him do it himself, just for the first day or two.

Something else you can do that will help is to massage the shoulder as much as he'll let you.  While you're watching television tonight, sit on the floor with your dog and gently massage the shoulder.  This will bring blood into the area which will help with healing.  Even in humans, when you put on products like Ben-Gay and massage them in, the massage is what actually helps more than the Ben-Gay.  The Ben-Gay makes it easier to massage, but you could even use hand lotion, because it's actually the massage that helps and not what you put on.  Of course, you can't use Ben-Gay or hand lotion on your dog, you'll just have to gently massage him "as-is", but I just wanted to illustrate that it's not so much what you put on as the massage that is helpful.

Even though you can't afford to take him to the vet until next week, I would still CALL the vet and speak with him on the phone for a few minutes, explaining what happened.  Tell him that you can't afford to bring him in until next week, and tell him what you are planning to do to take care of him until that point, and make sure he agrees with it before you go ahead and actually do it.  You never know, if you have a good relationship with your vet, he may tell you to just bring him in now and pay him next week, but at least you can get your course of action approved if nothing else.  Good luck!  And please post back and let us know how things go.

Ghilly
Helpful - 0
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