Great Dane Health Issues & Orthopedic Growth Disorders
It is super important to note that while it may be normal for Great Dane puppies to have large growth plates, they should still be strictly monitored.
Warm growth plates and flat or turned-out feet or limbs are another sign that something is wrong.
Some common Great Dane growth disorders include:
Always consult with a veterinarian if you are not sure. A
What Causes Knuckling in Giant Breed Dogs?
While the exact mechanism behind the cause of knuckling still needs more research, there are strong correlations to the following:
Feeding an unbalanced diet is thought to be the leading cause of knuckling.
Here is a list of things that cause a diet to be unbalanced:
We will outline these in detail below.
Science tells us that the only appropriate kibble for a Great Dane puppy is a LARGE or GIANT breed puppy formula from a brand that meets veterinary guidelines for ethics, sourcing, testing, research and responsibility.
You may have heard that Great Dane puppies should only have adult food. This information is outdated in 2022 and may actually be dangerous. We’re digging more into the science of this below! Choosing an appropriate food for your Great Dane puppy means that it should be:
The following brands and formulations are the only ones that meet the requirements listed above. We do not recommend feeding any other food brands to Great Dane puppies, though many people recommend other foods.
Many pet parents will switch their puppy’s food often in an attempt to resolve chronic loose stools, itching, or ‘pickiness’. All this does is create a puppy who will refuse to eat until toppers or a different food is offered. Picky dogs are created by, you guess it, US!
This practice also contributes to poor overall gut health, itching, and loose poop.
Choose a proper science-backed food, measure it with a scale, don’t overfeed, and stick with it.
We also recommend probiotics such as Fortiflora. This is a normal Great Dane puppy with large, knobby knees
No matter how ‘healthy’ it may seem to offer ground meat, rice, and veggies in lieu of kibble, home-cooked dog food is rarely balanced correctly.
The website www.balanceit.com allows you to plug in your home-cooked food recipe and see what it’s deficient in.
Homemade diets should only be made under the guidance of a board-certified veterinary nutritionist and NEVER for growing giant breed dogs.
THE BEST FOODS FOR GREAT DANE PUPPIES
Feeding too much food can cause uneven, fast growth, loose stools, and knuckling.
Your puppy does need to eat a LOT of food. But too much is a problem.
Puppies that are offered poorly balanced puppy or adult foods, who then overeat to try and get the nutrition they need, can suffer from chronic loose stools, knuckling, HOD, growing pains and permanent joint deformities. Great Dane puppies that are offered ‘adult only’ food in particular may need to eat much more than necessary. Adult food doesn’t provide them with enough nutrition for their energy levels and muscle development. This is one reason why we see so many teenage Danes with ongoing loose stools that look like walking skeletons with no muscle: they are literally starved for nutrients and will over-eat to try and compensate.
We no longer recommend choosing adult or ‘all life stages’ formulas.
A science-backed large or giant breed puppy food from Purina, Royal Canin, Hill’s, Eukanuba, or Iam’s are excellent choices.
Use a scale to measure your dog’s food once they are 3+ months of age. Don’t bribe your puppy to eat.
If they are full, they are full.
Puppy kibbles have more nutrition in the form of calories, fat, and protein. This can make it easy to overfeed, especially if you are used to seeing your Dane pups have to gorge themselves on adult formulas.
Watch your puppy’s body condition and adjust accordingly.
What does it mean when a Great Dane knuckling?
The term coined by professional breeders for this condition is knuckling over, and it describes a condition where the front end assembly of the dog, the weight bearing part of the body, is unable to support the whole body weight of the puppy, due to a lack of integrity in the muscle, tendon and ligaments.
Puppy Knuckling and solution. 12 weeks old Great Dane puppies #greatdane
Knuckling in dogs is usually fairly easy to recognize but can signal a variety of conditions. Integrative veterinarian, Dr. Buzby, discusses the five most common reasons for a dog to start knuckling on a front or back leg and shares some advice about caring for affected dogs.
Lameness or trouble walking is one of the top ten most common reasons why dogs are taken to see their veterinarians. When I see these patients in practice, most of them are limping or seem painful. Some dogs make it obvious which leg is affected. They might put a little bit of weight on their leg or none at all.
But plenty of my patients tend to “play it off” as nothing by the time their owner gets to the hospital. It’s almost as if they are trying to say, “No, mom, I’m fine! Really!” However, it’s a lot harder for my patients to hide their problem when they are knuckling over on one or more legs. Let me tell you a story about one of my patients to help make my point.
Marie was a seven-year-old German Shepherd dog who presented one day for limping on her right hind leg. She lived on a large property and absolutely loved to run the big border fence with her older brother, Charlie. Marie’s mom would always tell me stories about Marie’s excellent stride and graceful sprinting. So she was very concerned about her pup on this particular day.
On physical exam, Marie seemed normal except for mild limping on the right hind limb whenever Marie took a step forward. It seemed like she was dropping her hip as she stepped. However, her hips flexed and extended well during my orthopedic evaluation.
After gathering more information, I recommended X-rays for Marie. Thankfully, I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. I didn’t notice any signs of hip dysplasia in dogs or bone tumors. Her knees were also healthy so a torn ACL in dogs seemed less likely. I recommended an anti-inflammatory medication for Marie and talked to her mom about restricting Marie’s exercise for a week or two to help facilitate healing.
By the time Marie came back for her progress exam, she wasn’t any better. In fact she was worse. She was still limping on the right hind limb but also seemed to be losing feeling in her leg. Her right paw was now knuckling and she was starting to show similar signs on the left hind leg. She was also wobbling when she walked. Marie’s mom mentioned that Marie seemed a little more lethargic. The big question in my mind was, “What is going on to cause the knuckling and rapid progression of signs?”
When a dog’s foot rolls under as he or she stands or walks, we refer to this a knuckling. Because the dog may end up dragging the foot, paw knuckling can cause physical injury to the top or sides of the foot. Overall, knuckling is far less common in dogs than limping, but it is still important to recognize.
In some cases, paw knuckling occurs due to a problem with the dog’s nervous system. Normally, receptors in the tendons, muscles, and joints of the leg send signals through the nerves in the leg to the spinal cord and brain. This input is used to determine the position of the dog’s foot—is it upside down, right side up, placed under the dog, sticking out to the side, being held up, etc. The term conscious proprioception describes the nervous system’s coordination of signals to indicate the position of a dog’s limb.
If something interrupts the signaling pathway, the dog will not know where the limb is in space or how it is positioned. This causes proprioceptive deficits, such as:
Alternatively, other dogs may have a normal neurologic system but knuckle because their ligaments, tendons, or muscles are weak and cannot support their weight. This tends to occur more often in puppies or dogs with nutritional issues. However, frail senior dogs may also knuckle occasionally due to weakness.
Now that we have discussed some general reasons a dog may knuckle, let’s move on to some of the specific conditions your vet may consider if your dog is knuckling. This is not an exhaustive list but is meant to cover the more common problems.