Well as I posted in my original post regard Portia having strange behavior and being scared, I also later found her tarsal joint swollen. Not hugely but noticablely and she was limping on it a bit. The vet called a week ago to check and see if she was having the strange scaredy behavior...she wasn't but I told the vet that I found her joint swollen on her left hock. Today I took her into the vet for a look. The vet thinks it may be a small tear around the tarsal joint but not sure. She suggested xrays but at this point we just do not have the money for it. It would cost close to $500! SO the plan of action for now is to keep Portia quiet, no jumping or running. She is on a small dosage of a sedative to help keep her quiet. They also put her on Rimadyl and another pain anti-inflamatory med. I can't remember the name of it. We will need to keep her quiet for 4 weeks and then go in for a recheck. If she gets worse come in before then. At 4 weeks if things aren't any worse or any better then we will discuss other options and perhaps have the money by the to do xrays. We are hoping it isn't a tear and that she will heal. The vet said if it is a really small tear or strain it will be 6-8 weeks to heal. Surely by the 4 weeks we should see some kind of improvement if this isn't a major tear.
Have any of you had this happen???

I have actually had some experience in this. My black lab had a tear of her Achilles tendon when she was very young, around a year old. We took xrays and we couldn't see much. My vet ended up referring us to a surgical center where she had to have surgery to fix it eventually. It was very expensive, but we did end up resting her for weeks prior to see if it would help and it didn't. She was just running around outside and must have slipped or something and tore it. Best of luck to you.

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I should also add she is now almost 7 years old (next week) and she does seem to have some arthritis on that leg. I have seen here even limp for a few steps but otherwise she hasn't had any issues with it. She still runs and plays with 20 month old Beamer.

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