my dog has been limping randomly. One day she'd not even be able to jump on the couch and the next she'd be running around in the back yard chasing things. It goes back and forth like that. Checked her feet for puncture wounds nothing, took her to the vet he tested her limbs out and everything seemed okay. She had a temp of 103.3 and he took blood, hypothesizing the cause of the fever/limping is rocky mountain spotted fever. Gave me some anti biotics and pain pills to give her which i give her every day, but only give her the pain pills when she's having a bad day.  The vet called about the blood test and said it looked "Suspicious for rocky mountain fever" . I took her back to the vet after the first bottle of anti biotics got used up, and he took some more blood. He said this time it was going to specificly test for the rocky mountain fever. Refilled the pills and i am on my way. Vet left a msg today and says the test results once again looked suspicious, and that it might be a chronic thing she's had, but the symptoms have been subtle till now. 2nd time he's expensively drawn her blood and sent it to a lab to be tested for rocky mountain fever. Still havent' gotten a clear answer on wether she has it. She's never had this limping problem before. Started 4 weeks ago at teh most.  She used to play with a neigboors pitbull all the time they'd bump and run into each other , and there was never a problem.

 Her fever went down somewhat its sitting in the high 101.decimal(i think 101.. I looked up rocky mountain spotted fever and that looks like skin herpes or something nasty like chicken pox, yet my dog has no rashes. Dunno what to do about her limping and i dont know if i should still walk her outside because she has a fever.

Shouldn't the vet know if she has the rocky mountain fever after 2 tests? I need your help I'm worried for my dog's health right now.

i just looked up the lyme disease symptoms on dogs http://www.vetvax.com/lymediseasedogs.html

and that sounds exactly what she has. Fever of 102 - 105 , poor appetite, arthritic symptoms that shift from one leg to another exactly what is going on with her. Pain disappears and recurs, etc...

quote from teh site "Some dogs are affected with the Lyme Disease organism for over a year before they finally show symptoms. By this time, the disease may be quite widespread in the dog's body."

So i guess the vet's chronic disease hypothesi may hold some water.

Rocky mountain spotted fever sounds rediculous to me. Lyme disease sounds spot on i'm going to look more into it TY Big58 TY TY TY TY TY TY TY TY TY TY TY TY TY THANK YOU

She is a large breed dog but she's 4 yrs old.. The symptoms do sound similar tho. TY for the input guys