Help for a friend's dog

My friend has an almost year old English Setter that she bought from a guy selling "championed lined huntin' dogs" out of his truck in a parking lot. Yeah, I cringed too. Anyway, she's got a pretty noticable bowing of her front legs and her front feet are pigeon-toed. She also crabbs when she trots, though will run the live long day without issue. Is there any sort of supplement my friend can give her to help this? Vitamin C or something?

I'd send her Mordy's way...

Vitamin C might help. I would also feed a good large breed puppy food, as they are designed to promote proper bone growth. It may already be too late to correct her problems, but it's worth a try.

could be from malnutrition. calcium might also help. I saw one story of a dog with a really bad case of rickets, and on the right nutrition made a full recovery. Good luck to your friend!

Could be malnutrition or ricketts as mentioned but by a year old, you're kind of late to fix bone abnormalities unless they break them and re-set them. Most dogs are done/almost done growing by a year.

Anyhow make sure the dog is getting enough Calcium and Phosphorous (should be with a normal diet) and for some reason Zinc keeps popping into my head but I can't think of why.

I figured it might be too late, but I've just now gotten her convinced that there really is such thing as "quality dog food" and she went to buy some Innova. But I had to try, because it bugs the crap out of me when I see the dog standing straight on...it's the doggie-OCD in me.

What did she feed before? Even the shittiest dog food should prevent nutritional deficits.

Might just be a defect picked up from the uhm...questionable source.

Too much calcium can have the opposite effect. By reading about a raw diet, the only calcium a young growing, large breed dog needs is bone marrow from eating raw meaty bones. I used to supplement my border collie when she was a pup because thats what the breeder recommended. I would never do it again. What has the vet said about the matter?

I wouldn't add any extra calcium or vitamin D. Innova is a good food and has the right amounts of those nutrients. And, too much calcium can cause the kind of problems this dog has. Without knowing what she was fed before, it's impossible to say whether the problem was deficiency or excess or just genetics.

She was going between Royal Canin and Hy-Vee before. I think it's probably genetics, considering the source, but I figured I'd give it a shot. I don't think the vet has said anything about it, or at least nothing that my friend thought a big enough concern to repeat back to me.