Yes, she loves being out in the snow and can stay out there for hours. She's a funny girl. :-)

We saw the X-ray of her hips a few months ago. She's got pronounced bone spurs and her hip sockets are quite small. She also yelped when the vet tried to extend her legs through the normal range of motion. :-( She's quite a hopper too, so she's rough on her hips and hasn't yet learned to take it easy before she inflames things too much.

But she's doing Ok now, with no more than 30 minute walks. She takes 100 mg of gabapentin twice a day. That seems to help, and has the benefit that it is sometimes used to control epilepsy, so she gets that as a side-benefit.

She was on Rimadyl - a commonly prescribed anti-inflammatory - for a while, and it seemed to help her be more active and happier, but after a short while it seemed to upset her stomach or GI tract terribly - to the point that she wouldn't eat and was drinking at strange times. We had to take her off it and haven't found a replacement.

If things eventually get really bad with her mobility and stiffness, they apparently can grind-down the ball of the femur to reduce the grinding and stiffness and apparently it works great. Sounds weird to me, but there you are. That's a last-resort, of course. Since it is mainly her right hip, maybe only that one would need to be done and her recovery wouldn't be too arduous...

She (and I) is/are taking glucosamine and condroitin and MSM and all that stuff. I'm not convinced it actually does anything, but who knows. If it doesn't hurt, I guess it's worth a shot. We can afford it and it helps keep the vet in business. ;-)

I still owe you a memory stick with some scans. I will get that to you fairly soon, at least in geological time... :-/ Sorry about the delay.

Thanks.

Cheers,
Scott.