here is an interesting story on a spontaneous recovery

[davet]

another orthopaedic trivia tale from days of yore (and if I've posted
it
before then apologies)

This related to a sighthound shape cross who fell down the stairs and
gained
a radial paralysis rt fore for which we couldn't identify a more
localised
or specific lesion. He was treated conservatively for some 6-8 weeks
during
which time he was radiographed twice, low neck, shoulder and elbow.. no
lesions found.

As y'all (I'm learning foreign languages here) guess this progressed to
dorsal paw excoriation and reluctantly I felt amputation was
appropriate
despite the narrow 'wheel base' and scheduled accordingly.

On the morning of The Op he fell down the stairs again .. got up and
started
placing the foot correctly and made a full recovery.

..and no, I don't recall how much muscle wasting happened, I probably
didn't
map sensory nerves as fully as I would now and EMG studies weren't
available
back then..

I wont bore folk with the tale of the dog with the neck pain, the dog
with
the dislocated cervical vertebra or the mastiff dog with hind end
paresis
referred to RVC where they couldn't find a lesion and recommended
euthanasia - we'll save those for later <s

[Traci]

Interesting indeed. But, I wonder if he didn't miss something obvious in the beginning!

[davet]

this is one of the things that " after the fact" you wonder what else you could have done...One of the nicest dogs we had was qan Amputee...it was a stray accident case that was be=rought in whe Amandas mom swas working for me....it had radial paralysis in the left for leg...I told AM that when he gets healed up he would have to go to the SPCA cause we already had two dogs...not a good idea to tell her that...Anyway I tried for weeks to get the leg working and decided to amputate cause it was getting infected and he was knockig our toy poodle off the steps with it...Anyway amputated and he did fine...lived for about 14 years..The neighbor hood kids would come by and ask if "Georgie" could come out and play...they never asked if one of our kids could come out and play cause the dog was more fun,. But these radial paralysis cases some time do suprising things...I took one dog down to the U. Of P vet school and they predicted the nerves would be functioning in two or three weeks...Never did but the dog, a boxer had the leg removed about 6 months later...these three legged animals really do fine minus a leg...In fact in Miami had a two legged patient...he seemed to care less with only two legs...got a long fine..