Hello,
I see a couple of other posts here about limping I was going to reply directly but as this is slightly different i thought to create a new topic.
I had my girl out at the beach a few weeks ago and she was running around like mad digging sand etc as i'm sure all spaniels do!
I got home and she was fine but then she did something silly and tried to jump between a chair and a sofa and ended up landing on the wooden floor.
I was told she landed funny on her back paw during this jump, but to be honest she seemed fine and was walking around the garden without issue. I left her for an hour or two and came back later in the evening. When she got out of bed she couldn't put any weight on her front left paw. She would nip at me when i went to investigate. I did a full exam by gently squeezing all the way up and and seemed to not like me near her shoulder.
I left her over night and came down to take her out in the garden. She got out of bed and happily walked out of bed with no limp!! I hadn't given her any medicine or anything! A miracle!
Later on that day she started limping with her rear paw.. Not as bad as the front the day before. I checked her paws and noticed between all the paws were slightly red and looks a bit inflamed. Could she have injured them from digging in the abrasive sand? Or stepped on a jelly fish ? Or the sea salt? The one thing i didn't do is wash her straight after the beach (i did only later in the evening).
Recently I also noticed she limped on another leg the other day while out in the garden, i believe she may have stood on a thorn. I guess with this time of year with the salt (on the roads for ice) and the high winds bringing out old thorny branches from the hedges doesn't help as my garden is now full of them.
The way she was limping really looked a lot worse than an irritated paw but i'm glad that all it was.. Thankfully she'd been groomed recently and it was much easier to see the flesh between her toes.
Until I read it I never gave much consideration to road salt and it's ability to irritate the paws (that cause irritation, causing the dog to lick at the paw which can cause high salt intake and a risk of kidney issues). Also the salt people buy to use privately can contain antifreeze as well. Always best to wash paws after a walk!