Limping Adolsecent Mixed Breed Dog

[KalisDuchess]

My puppy Kalis, is an 8.5 month old German/Aussie X AK Malamute. He's of general excellent health and has an exceptional temperament. I am proud to say that besides the occasional excited nip when I hand feed him a treat with other dogs around he has never bit me, nor the vet when she was cranking away on him seeking cause of this injury.

Two months ago, while we were exercising one hot summer night, Kalis developed a limp once he was home. I checked his paw and it seemed to have a small rip with no bleeding on one side, so I chalked it up some stiffness from the heat, or most likely the pad. He got lots of water, limped around for a couple of days and was back to his normal self in no time flat. Kalis' normal self is pretty rammy. On the hardwood floors he is constantly spinning out and jamming himself into obstacles.
Two weeks ago, Kalis went running down the stairs like an idiot and I heard a good crash at the bottom . No yelp or whining though. I let him out and when he came back in, he had a limp. I checked him over for any pad damage a few times and when there was none, I went up and down his leg poking and prodding and pulling this way and that. There is no specific spot that I can find. So I thought, silly boy sprained something.
A few days into the limp I got worried. So I got my vet, who lives 20 miles away to come over and check him out on one of her trips. She felt him all over and at the top of his leg, she said she felt a tight muscle that when activated triggered a series of muscles down his leg. Okay, cool I thought. She gave him a good little massage, and he grimaced a little, but don't we all from our first really deep tissue massage.

SO it's a week later. He uses his leg regularly but mostly with a limp. I have stairs to get anywhere in my house (so his rest which I am enforcing as much as possible is not complete) and unless I have a leash on him in the yard to do his business he often trots around with a limp and will run if there is a reason to check something out. My dogs are agility dogs and train to do ski-joring. Kalis has not pulled weight yet as he's quite young, but runs with my shepherd attached by a tether for up to 2 km at a time. That exercise ended due to the weather about a week before this injury, plus we have puppioes here, so I don;t quite have the time for big workouts. You can hear him clunking down into various haunts around the house all day.

The injury is the front right leg.
I can fully manipulate the paw, all of the joints and the bones any which way I want, until I force the pads of the paw into the weight bearing position and begin to place force upwards on the structure. I do this while holding the leg above the "wrist" and he seems leery sometimes but most often is totally indifferent. Definitely NOT afraid to give me the leg. When I move up to the elbow and isolate causing bearing force on the pads, his reaction is what I would classify as pain. There is 100% a twinge when I push up on the pads when he is laying on his side. putting the walking angle into his paw.


I am having difficulty reconciling the "tight muslce" diagnosis with the lack of evidence out there( I haven;t seen anyone make a comment on a long-term limp due to muscle stiffness) to support this theory. However I believe in chiro for pets and wish we still had a working pet chiro near my community. Still, it's altogether possible and I'm not a denier. Otherwise I'd be a vet makin the pet money.

So I hope I've supplied ample information to create a hypothesis.
I don't need to hear take him to a vet unless you have a specific cause, because I am working with a great vet already.

I am confused because an ACL tear is usually indicated by extreme discomfort and inability to use the limb. He's not lame, but is limping. Cartiledge would react when manipulation to the specific joints in the limb occured as well.
Again, there is no pain when any parts are manipulated separately, only when the force is applied to the pad in the weigt bearing structure..
In the super pixellated picture I upped, you can see how he favours the leg. He'll walk away limping and goes down the stairs on leg at a time smoothly. I need a piece of mind or I'm gong to end up going crazy and spending money taking time off work and getting xrays and several bet bills, but I want my healthy little clutz back! ANd yes, I've ordered him some ant-slip booties. If it's anything like the drywall in my house he's going to destroy them in a day.,
Thanks for any help and thank you for reading this novel!! LOL

peace
namaste
Glen