Cramp

[nobjerk 161]

i have a bitch that suffers intermittently with this after and during exercise , shes around two , kept fit all year and fed on a fish based diet . shes allergic to some form of wheat/grain/cereal that manifests a week or so after eating anything of that nature with localized skin pustules and soreness , im not sure if this has any bearing on the situation (dietary deficiency) . does anyone have any experience with this ? and or suggestions for a solution ?

she will whine on return from a run typically only when she dosent catch and lower herself to a lying position , if i try to get her up immediately she will hold up a leg and whine . after a few minutes of rubbing and stretching from me she will just return to normal .

thanks in advance for any help

[sandymere 8,261]

Is it always the same leg? ie could it be an injury?

 

With cramp I'ts usually fitness in lurchers thats the problem.

A general on cramping from bacl along.

 

Cramping, some thoughts on hypocapnia.

 

Thankfully cramping is not an overly common occurrence in dogs but there are those that seem to suffer unduly and any dog can get cramp. To my mind there are two common types, one is reasonable well understood, the other less so. The commonest, and least well understood, is likely due to over exertion, an example would be me mountain biking on Exmoor and doing a lot more than I’m used and getting wicked cramp in my quads. A couple of months later doing the same route at a faster pace no cramp, the difference

preparation in the form of two months training, Dogs suffer in much the same way. The actual cause of the electrical impulse excitation that causes the muscles to spasm is not well understood but this relatively common form of cramping, as with Exercise induced bronchspasm (EIB) and rhabdomyolysis (RMD), can be reduced significantly by appropriate preparation in the form of training.

 

The second form is another circumstance where cramping is a major problem and, this in spite of good fitness, tends to be seen in track dogs although lurchers and terriers can suffer. In these cases temperament is a major contributing factor and to examine this particular problem I’ll go back to my early days.

 

Many years ago a fellow brought me a fair little track bitch for a bitof a sort out, her problem was that she would cramp badly if kenneled for any length of time prior to racing. This was a classic example in

that she would get herself very het on the way to the track and in the kennel whilst waiting. There were and still are many causes proposed for this problem and as many remedies that supposedly help, most of which had already been tried without much improvement in her case.

 

I started with the basics of road work and gallops to improve fitness and used electrolytes and vitamin E as these were thought to redress an imbalance that was a contributing factor in these cases. After six weeks I took her to a little permission and slipped her behind a hare. She ran like a good un and although had no hope of success she certainly had pace. With no cramping and nothing beyond a little stiffness over the following days we were soon off to the flapping track at Huntingdon for a trial one Sunday morning. The journey was reasonable short and she was in the traps within a few minutes of arriving, again she flew no cramping and a good time! I was well chuffed and booked a trail at Henlow the next weekend. This time the journey was a little longer and she was kenneled at the track for a while prior to trapping. For the

third time she flew out but alas locked within 50 yards with a major cramp.

 

She went on to be a reasonably good flapper but never made it beyond that, the owner took her back and I believe he continued at Huntingdon. A well known trainer had had her prior to being brought to me and they’d tried every supplement known to man but neither they nor I could find a cure. Perhaps with more time we would have been able to better acclimatise her to the racing experience and so reduce the stress that was at the heart of the problem but the owner didn’t wish to invest in a lengthy course of action for what was only ever going to be a middle grader.

 

Traditionally lactic acid and or an electrolyte imbalance were blamed in these cases but with the recent change of thought on lactic acid,it’s now seem as an integral part of the energy cycle and not the bad boy any more it’s unlikely to be a causative factor. Then as these dogs don’t seem to have any ongoing electrolyte imbalance, this bitch had had bloods and they showed normal values this theory also seems implausible. The stress response was a major clue but at that time neither I nor my peers had any idea of the biochemistry involved and just blindly followed a set course of adding electrolytes

etc.

 

Now anyone who has left a stressy dog in a car will have seen the condensation that accumulates on the windows due to the excessive panting. This tells use they are losing water, as this is via vapor from

breath we also know that they will not be losing a large amount of electrolytes, boils a pan of salt water and the water will evaporate as vapour and the salt will be left behind. Some salts may be lost in drawl

but not an excessive amount. Consider an hours car journey followed by an hour in the kennel and you can imagine how much fluid might be lost, this can also be a couple of hours for a lurcher on the way out lamping etc. So fluid loss must be having an effect but it’s hard to put the whole thing down to this.

 

Next we should look at those electrolytes, muscles work via electrical impulses and electrolytes are the way this is carried out so they must be playing a part. This combined with the pH of blood needing to be in a very narrow band, outside of this electrolytes become unbalanced, we may have a clue as to what is going on. Respiratory alkalosis, in this situation a self limiting short term effect, could be the culprit.

 

In every day terms hyperventilation, breathing to fast, for an extended time will lead to the body blowing off to much carbon dioxide, as this is an acid in the blood the blood will become less acid, more alkaline,

which leads to a reduction in serum calcium, this could well be the reason for cramping. Its well known symptom in people with cramping being a commonly seen side effect of hyperventilation, hence why they were given a paper bag to breath into, it made them re breath their carbon dioxide in theory increasing it so reducing symptoms of faints, dizziness, fits, cramps etc.

 

Perhaps this is why the remedies don’t work in these cases; boosting electrolytes such as potassium etc will not help as the body just excretes the excess as there isn’t a true underlying deficit, the same

with bicarb, the serum levels always go back to the set mean. It’s the hyperventilation that brings about the imbalance by temporarily shifting rather than there being a true deficit.

 

This leaves us with behavioral intervention rather than supplementation as the best coarse of action.. So proper introduction to racing/working to reduce the stress response coupled with proper physical training to prepare for the exercise to be performed and one should get a reduction in the incidence of cramp, (in theory).

 

Regards s

 

PS your dog is very unlikely to be allergic to wheat.

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/food-allergies-facts-myths-and-pseudoscience/

Edited September 16, 2013 by sandymere

[nobjerk 161]

thanks for your efforts s , shes not a stressy dog but the info has been digested .

 

i was feeding her on csj dry feed until she reached a year old , then the skin problems started . after alot of experimentation and antibiotics i got the skin under control and improved after 50% hair loss and red raw itchiness . i changed her diet to an exclusion feed (advice from vet ) and its almost all renewed . i try to keep her away from any other dietary influences that im not sure of the ingredients , but recently i fed one of my terriers some leftover pasta and she threw it up , the lurcher then ate the tasty bits! after around a week the skin flared up with the aforementioned symptoms . and after a week or so of normal diet it has settled again . so i just presumed the cereal based feeds were the cause of my problems .

[dytkos 17,536]

Without reading all the replys, give her half a tin of Asda Chopped Tomatoes (34p a tin) every day in her diet.

 

Cheers, D.

[nobjerk 161]

Without reading all the replys, give her half a tin of Asda Chopped Tomatoes (34p a tin) every day in her diet.

 

Cheers, D.

thanks d , will give it a try

[beast 1,884]

i have a bitch that suffers intermittently with this after and during exercise , shes around two , kept fit all year and fed on a fish based diet . shes allergic to some form of wheat/grain/cereal that manifests a week or so after eating anything of that nature with localized skin pustules and soreness , im not sure if this has any bearing on the situation (dietary deficiency) . does anyone have any experience with this ? and or suggestions for a solution ?

she will whine on return from a run typically only when she dosent catch and lower herself to a lying position , if i try to get her up immediately she will hold up a leg and whine . after a few minutes of rubbing and stretching from me she will just return to normal .

thanks in advance for any help

 

this might sound odd but bear with me. you say it's typically when she doesnt catch, is there no correlation then with how much or what type of exercise she has done? what happens if you dont rub and stretch her? lifting a leg up doesnt sound typical of a cramp symptom to me? what happens if you simply walk out of the room and leave her when she starts lying down?

the point i'm getting at is whether this is actually a psycological issue, and without even realising it you are rewarding the behaviour by rubbing and stroking the dog? perhaps there is something you do differently when she hasnt caught which is acting as some kind of cue for her? remember that dogs pick up on tiny little things which we may not even notice we are doing?

[nobjerk 161]

 

i have a bitch that suffers intermittently with this after and during exercise , shes around two , kept fit all year and fed on a fish based diet . shes allergic to some form of wheat/grain/cereal that manifests a week or so after eating anything of that nature with localized skin pustules and soreness , im not sure if this has any bearing on the situation (dietary deficiency) . does anyone have any experience with this ? and or suggestions for a solution ?

she will whine on return from a run typically only when she dosent catch and lower herself to a lying position , if i try to get her up immediately she will hold up a leg and whine . after a few minutes of rubbing and stretching from me she will just return to normal .

thanks in advance for any help

 

this might sound odd but bear with me. you say it's typically when she doesnt catch, is there no correlation then with how much or what type of exercise she has done? what happens if you dont rub and stretch her? lifting a leg up doesnt sound typical of a cramp symptom to me? what happens if you simply walk out of the room and leave her when she starts lying down?

the point i'm getting at is whether this is actually a psycological issue, and without even realising it you are rewarding the behaviour by rubbing and stroking the dog? perhaps there is something you do differently when she hasnt caught which is acting as some kind of cue for her? remember that dogs pick up on tiny little things which we may not even notice we are doing?

 

points considered many thanks for your input