Limping - Osteochondritis Dissecans (OCD)

On one afternoon while at a dog park with Henley I noticed as he was running that he was slightly favouring one front leg. It wasn’t immediately clear which of the two front legs had the issue but as it wasn’t overly affecting him I decided to keep an eye on it. A couple of days later on a separate outing to another park he jumped up onto a park bench seat and as puppies do got distracted and propelled himself off the seat. The problem was he had one leg dangling down in between two of the slats of timber of the seat. Yelping ensued and he was quickly extracted from his predicament but from then onwards the limping was more prominent. Henley is also more of an intense wrestling puppy with his close canine friends and as I like to put it he’s great at running, he just hasn’t got the stopping down pat yet. He used to run full pelt and army roll when he got close to his puppy friends. Quite a few times I and the owners of the other dogs would wince and say “that has to hurt, right?” To try and slow him down I separated him and distracted him with some training or walked him around to the other side of the park. But the minute he was let loose he was back at it. 

Needless to say a visit to our local vet was done. Henley ever the troublemaker bounced around like a typical jack in the box Vizsla pup and you couldn’t tell he had an injury at all. Luckily I filmed his limping at home and showed the vet.

After examining Henley's front left shoulder (which he yelped when the joint was felt and moved) and an x-ray was taken our veterinarian diagnosed Henley with Osteochondritis Dissecans aka OCD. You as I when I first heard of it had no clue what OCD is and how it affects the joint. One of the best short and concise descriptions can be found on Peak Vetrinary Referral Center's website:

"OCD (osteochondrosis dessicans) is probably the leading cause of osteoarthritis of the shoulder joint. Shoulder OCD occurs when a piece of cartilage separates from the underlying bone. Pain is due to inflammation of the joint and exposure of nerves in the bone under the cartilage flap" (accessed online 15 Aug 2014 http://www.peakveterinaryreferral.com/specialty-services/surgery/shoulder-ocd/)

We think that Henley's rapid growth in combination with him injuring the shoulder has led to the development of OCD in his shoulder. However as it was caught extremely early on we decided to see how some injections of a combination of anti-inflammatory, artificial cartilage and aids in the lubrication of the injured joint. The Synovan injections were taken weekly for four weeks and with rest Henley went from being quite lame to walking normally. However it is now a couple of months since his diagnosis and he has gone back to limping. So on advice from our vet the next step is an operation to remove the flap of cartilage. A vast majority of dogs with OCD recover the best after having the cartilage flap surgically removed. Until he has the surgery (which I am busily saving for!) he is on rest and relaxation. Short easy walks are a must though for both his and the families sanity.
However as I have mentioned its hard to keep a Vizsla quiet as you can see in this video of him doing rounders/ zooms:

Excuse the ending he isn't the best at stopping and the reaction you hear at the end is from  my mum watching Henley using her orchids as brakes to stop himself from slamming into the outside wall of the house.

Has anyone had any experience with OCD (osteochondrosis dessicans) and their dog? It often occurs in large breeds but I've been told that it can occur quite frequently in Border Collies and Brittany Spaniels.