Apologies for the rather lengthy post.
Looking for some input in regard to our dog’s (9 years) overall health. She is a larger breed from Morocco. I believe she is a Sloughi mix and we started her on raw 3 weeks ago. Since 2024, our dog has become very lethargic, has skin issues (elephant skin), can’t walk very far without getting tired. The lethargy is the biggest thing I’ve noticed since last summer. She is overweight by about 20lbs. We’ve cut back food, we exercised twice a day, no human food, raw diet, and she never lost weight. She is a thief and use to be very good at sneaking the cat food and then closing the gate so we didn’t know she had been in there. We’ve been dealing with the weight gain since 2024
She also has two lipomas under each front leg, that got larger over time.
Lipomas aside, My first thought was hypothyroidism, and I was convinced the tests would come back positive. All the symptoms matched…..but nearly $2000 later, all tests came back normal, including regular labs.
I do believe she has joint discomfort in one of her front legs, due to an old injury and repeatedly jumping out of the car (I know, I should have got her a ramp). We do a high quality joint supplement for her which seems to make a difference when she’s hanging around the house. She doesn’t appear to be in pain - she gets stiff after laying around and will limp a bit until her joints get warmed up. Not always though as the joint supplement make a big difference But as soon as we go for a walk, she’s so excited and then 5 mins in, she’s slow as molasses (I suspect walks is where she gets sore). Sometimes she sits down to take a break. I don’t walk her far anymore. Sometimes it’s around a local nature park for 10 mins.
My next suspicion is a big yeast overgrowth. After she pees, she cleans herself but almost obsessively to the point where she’s heavily panting when I tell
Her to stop. She also gets yeast in the creases of her lipomas. The whole area of the lipomas are elephant skin.
So all these things combined are my guesses as to what’s going on.
Possible joint pain
Possible yeast overgrowth/skin issues
Maybe both these things combined are wreaking havoc on her. Yeast generally doesn’t have a good rep.
Or discomfort from lipomas?
We do Tri-acta joint supplement and salmon oil.
The vet is getting very expensive and now with the high cost of living where we are, every dollar counts for us. I’ve taken her to the vet 3 times now and haven’t got any answers. Sometimes I feel like they just want to upsell me rather than help me. But that’s a story for another day.
So I’m putting this info out to the community to see is anyone has any suggestions or perhaps these symptoms are similar to your dogs. Someone also suggested to deworm her as it hasn’t been done since she was a puppy. I don’t know much about worms/deworming.
Thanks for any information given.
This is something I’ve been researching and researching for the last year. The problem is that many things like thyroid issues, allergies, yeast problems and even joint pain, all have similar symptoms and sometimes I’m left with more questions than answers.