I had a really neat case a couple weeks ago. A sweet old Border Collie, Daisy, came in because she was a bit stiff when getting up. As her physical was normal, I discussed performing radiographs on her hips to see if she was developing hip dysplasia.
Her pelvic radiograph showed mild arthritis, the surprise was her spine. Daisy’s entire lumbar spine was fused together! This is the first time I have seen this extensive a case of spondylosis deformans. It is normally an incidental finding on radiographs.
Spondylosis occurs when osteophytic (bony) bridges form between the vertebrae. Most are age-related and are painless. So far, I have only seen one case where it caused an issue – a police dog that had partially fractured an osteophyte after jumping over a 6 foot fence.
The amazing thing about Daisy is that she regularly has “puppy” bouts and herds the cows. We started her on anti-inflammatories so she will have more days to comfortably herd her cows without her hips bothering her.
Picture: Upper spine is normal so compare it to the lower spine in the picture.
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