I have a 1 year old maltese puppy, we brought him to the vet 3 weeks ago because he had an ear infection but when we brought him home he yelped in pain when we picked him up - we figured he was just a little traumatized by the way the vet handled him and he would be fine within a few days - but we were wrong..

the problem has only worsened to the point where the dog can barley walk. His hind legs have become extremely fragile and it is apparent that he has lost a significant amount of muscle in his back area. His back and hind legs are extremely thin. When he tries to get up froma sitting position he cries because he is clearly hurting. Also when he stands he holds one leg up, which we have taken to mean that he cannot put pressure or distrubute his weight onto this leg.

we have brought him to the vet 3 times and they do not know what's wrong with him. They have put him on anti inflamatory medications and now on prednisone. They have taken x-rays and blood work and cannot figure out the problem

does anyone have any insight to what may be wrong with my poor pupp ?

thank you.

I would try taking your dog to a different vet. I had a dog that was bitten by another dog and I took it to one vet and all they did was give it antibiotics and said to let the wound heal on its own so any infections could drain out and the wound bled for 3 days I took him to another vet and they said that the first vet I went to was incompetent and they've heard plenty of complaints about that particular vet. My guess would be it's either muscular/skeletal issue or a neurological problem. I am not a vet so I couldn't say for sure

Oh, please get a second opinion.

It is very very rare for a competent vet to just say that they don't know what it wrong with the dog.

There are tests for nearly every ailment under the sun that they can do to determine the cause, some take a long time for results to come back, others you can find out in a day or two.

My guess is that either you have been told of certain tests and they were too costly or that particular vet does not know about the tests or does not want to do them for some reason.

One thing that I know can be a problem with Maltese is slipping patellas, these can be very painful and cause them to either walk strangely or not want to walk at all causing muscle wastage.
The patella is basically the knee-cap in their hind legs, sometimes the muscle holding the bone in place is weak, causing the plates of bone to slip out of place. It is a genetic disorder and any good breeder will have a dog spayed/neutered immediately after discovering they have this problem.

Another common problem which my mothers poodle has is cruchet ligament damage. This unfortunately isn't something that is easily fixed and the best coarse of action is simply to rest the dog as much as possible until the injury has healed.
Her dog walks with a severe limp and often holds his leg up as you have described, he also has significant muscle loss in his hind legs.
Some dogs get over ligament damage, others don't. In her case it is a recurring problem so he is fairly restricted with his exercise these days.

So as others have said I would be getting a second opinion.