I have had 2 doxies with back problems. One thing that amazes me is how they ignore the pain while at the vet.
I took Missy yesterday for back pain. While at the house she was really favoring the leg and couldn't get comfortable while I was carrying her and holding her in the vet's office. We go into see the vet and she wanted me to let Missy down and see if she could walk. I let her down and she started walking with a slight limp (much less than at home) The vets says "it looks like she just has a slight limp" and I said "it is worse than that" Then the vet picked her up and examined her. Missy just stood there rigid while the vet felt her over.
Another time, Dutchess (passed on) was at the vet with favoring the leg (worse than Missy was). Dutchess saw a kid in another room and she took off running to see the kid. The way she was running you wouldn't think there was anyting wrong with her, but it had to be terribly painful.
It is like they block out the pain to do something they want. Another time, Dutchess was going through a bout with the back and I opened a cheese wrapper (cheese is a special treat for ther) she came running into the kitches, not limping at all. I have back problems myself and if I was on the couch and my wife had just made chili dogs (a special treat for me) I could never run into the kitchen for them LOL
How can they do that? They must be very pain tolerant. Anyone else have any experiences like that?
Dogs are usually very stoic throw back to the wolf ancestor's if a wolf were to show pain they would loose their place in the pack or something along those lines is what I have read over the years.
And that's how cheerful dogs are but might not help on vet diagnosis. Better if you capture video at home for vet to see their conditions..