Many thanks to everyone who sent in their responses for Part I of our 2010 Tripawds Treatment and Recovery Survey about Canine Amputation and Cancer Care. Now, here’s Part II, which focuses on canine bone cancer and alternative medicine.

Please be sure to complete the 2010 Tripawds Care Survey Part 1. You will be redirected here to part 2 upon submission.

Once again, Tripawds is holding an incentive drawing for another $10 Café Cash gift certificate. One lucky winner can use it toward anything from the new Tripawds Gift Shop.

To be entered in the drawing, just fill out Part II of the survey below (and Part I if you haven’t already done so), no later than Monday, March 22 at 12 midnight, Pacific Time.

We’ll continue taking responses indefinitely. Stay tuned for our findings from your answers, here in Jerry’s blog and his three legged dog discussion forums. Thanks for taking time out to help us with this impawtant research.

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This just in from 2 Dogs 2000 Miles … The submission deadline for the 2010 Cancer Can’t Keep a Good Dog Down Calendar has been extended  to August 22nd at midnight (EDT)!

Be sure to submit a photo of your cancer hero pup – passed or living – along with a paragraph or two about their battle with cancer. The 2Dogs team will be accepting calendar submissions via email with one (1) photograph either in jpeg or gif format and a minimum file size of 300kB to calendar@2dogs2000miles.org.

Be sure to include your pup’s cancer story, but please try and limit it to 1000 characters or less. If you have any questions you can contact erich@2dogs2000miles.org.

A portion of the proceeds from the 2009 Canine Cancer Calendar went to the Morris Animal Foundation (MAF) in support of their Canine Cancer Campaign. This year, the Tufts Veterinary School Harrington Oncology Program and the Texas A&M Veterinary School’s Imaging and Cancer Treatment Center will be recognized for their advancement of companion pet cancer research.

Submit your story and photo today! Then stay tuned for news about the Calendar voting. And don’t miss that last post about the first Canine Cancer Caucus in Washington, DC on September 18.

Anyone who’s been following Luke and the Boys on their 2000 mile hike for canine cancer awareness surely knows about the upcoming – first ever – Canine Cancer Caucus. But we want everyone to know about this amazing event!

The Big Dog, Hudson and Murphy are on their way to Washington DC to lead the largest dog walk in history across the Potomac to the National Mall. On September 18th, 2009 they’ll be gathering at the LBJ Grove in the Lady Bird Johnson Park at 10AM. There will be speakers, one one one time with legislators, and best of all … lots of dogs!

The official 2Dogs2000Miles.org Canine Cancer Caucus press release has complete details but here’s a brief video to give you an idea about the magnitude of this special event…

The folks at the Guinness Book have been notified, and we’re hoping this march breaks the world record for the largest dog walk. But we need your help! Please pass along this link or the press release to every pet lover, animal organization, local newspaper, shelter, rescue, or vet clinic you know.

If at all possible, please try to attend. So they know how many potty bags to have on hand, dog walkers are being asked to please register in advance. And if you can’t be there, consider supporting the march with one of the commemorative Canine Cancer Caucus t-shirts for people, or for dogs! And above all, don’t forget to Puppy Up!

More big news for tripawds and their people who wish to connect with others! We just created a new tripawd discussion forum where members can schedule live chat sessions of their own.

My people always try to be available in the chat room most evenings. But often there is no one their to chat with others in their time of need. Now there is a way to schedule your own chats, or just let everyone know when you may be online. Here are some other ideas that would make the Tripawd Chat Room an even better resource for everyone:

• Add a new topic for scheduling breed-specific chats
• Create a topic for scheduled live chats about specific issues
• Announce a schedule of regular times you will be in the chat room
• Update topics with a summary of the chat

Simply add a topic for your scheduled chat(s). Be sure to provide ample notification time for your chat considering some members may check the forums weekly. Optionally, use the Private Messaging (Inbox) system to invite specific members. Then, just be available in the chat room at your specified time and hopefully others will arrive. We’ll certainly try to be there!

After the chat, post a reply to your forum topic with a summary or transcript. If you do not refresh the page during your chat, all comments can be copied from the shout box and pasted into a forum post. Keep in mind, however, that emptying the shout box by reloading the page can improve browser performance during busy chats.

Anyway, we hope this new scheduled chat forum will help members utilize the chat room better. We’ll certainly use it to schedule tripawd chats of our own, so stay tuned!

Viewers of Nature’s Why We Love Cats and Dogs should remember the scene where Jim and René mention a comic strip taped to the back of their medicine cabinet door. It shows Ozzie wondering what time it is, and Earl the dog answering with a resounding Now! Now! Now! Now! Now!

Being huge Mutts fans, they were excited to hear about the new Mutts Treasury from Patrick McDonnell featuring all our favorite furry friends from the funnies. Hoping it might include this strip, they requested a review copy  from Andrews McMeel publishing who kindly obliged. And guess what? Check out page 40!

Needless to say, my people were excited to review Stop and Smell the Roses. And they loved it! Here is what they had to say… Read the rest of this entry »

First and foremost, for all of you who have contributed to our current fund-raising campaign, we can’t thank you enough for your generous support. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

My people have now completed our migration of this blog and the Tripawd Discussion Forums to our own dedicated server. This was no easy feat, but the upgrade was necessary due to poor website performance on our old shared hosting account.

As our community grows, so must we. It is our mission to help support those of you facing the difficult decisions of amputation and cancer care for your pups. With your support, we can continue to do so indefinitely.

It has been almost three weeks since we made the big leap to our new box. We believe we have worked out all the kinks. Those who remember all the mysterious Server 500 errors, shouldn’t be seeing them any more. If you do, or encounter any other anomalies, please report the details here.

Now that we have the bandwidth, you can expect more major improvements around here too. Our new random tripawd header images are just the beginning. The forums are finally working well, and our next project will be a better chat room solution. The big news, however, will be when we launch tripawds.net … we don’t want to give away too much about this yet, so stay tuned for some really exciting announcements.

All that’s left to do with this upgrade is pay for it. And thanks to many of you, we are making great progress toward that end. But we have a long way to go. As of this posting, we have raised 30% of our goal to cover the next full year of dedicated hosting and all our operating expenses. Just 20 contributors have made this happen. But consider this: we have more than 500 registered forum members and blog subscribers. If everyone gave just a few dollars, we could call this campaign quits.

If you have given already, please don’t contribute again. Let’s give everyone a chance to help out. If you think Tripawds is run by some big company, we are honored, but you are mistaken. Our campaign announcement includes more details and an itemized expense budget for those interested. And don’t forget Sasha’s generous offer to create custom tripawd poster artwork for every dog who donates.

Please know that we totally understand the costs associated with canine cancer care, and we do not expect everyone to Chip In. If you are not in a position to contribute, please consider helping by placing the widget above on your website or Facebook profile. Just click the <copy> link for details.

Thank you for your continued support.

While it’s sad to hear about so many dogs losing a leg around here, we’re happy to announce our second Tripawd Pals gallery now includes 100 of our three-legged friends. We’ve started our third Tripawd Pals Gallery so keep those photos coming.

This slideshow includes Pals 101 through 200. You can check out the first 100 here. These photos continue to provide inspawration for those questioning amputation for their own dogs. But they take up server space, and that costs money.

Please read about our efforts to keep this website up and running at peak performance and consider a small contribution to the Tripawds web server upgrade campaign! Many thanks to those who have already helped, and thank you all for your continued support and participation.

We can’t thank PBS and WNET enough for sharing Jerry’s story on Nature’s Why We Love Cats and Dogs yesterday. If you missed it, no worries. You can still watch the full episode online! Or, you can just skip to parts 2 & 5 for our segments!

We must give a special shout-out to producer Ellen Goosenberg Kent and her crew. Since they first followed us around Santa Fe last March, we’ve wondered what would come of the hours of footage they shot.

Well, Ellen did a simply amazing job telling Jerry’s story! We have now seen it about a dozen times and still cry every time.

And the feedback has simply been overwhelming. Just check out some of the heartfelt comments people are leaving on our posts about Jerry’s last days.

We are just astounded to think that our story has touched so many people, in such profound ways. If the response here and on the Nature website is any indication, Ellen is sure to be nominated for another Emmy!

And if traffic is any indication of our future success with this website, Jerry’s legacy is bound to live on here forever.

We typically averaged about 900 unique visits a day. Yesterday alone we had more than 6,000 visitors!

Thank you Ellen. Thank you Nature. Thank you PBS.

And special thanks to all the viewers out there who dropped by to discover Jerry’s full story and share their own puppy-love stories with us. Thanks to all of you, we continue to spread the word that it’s better to hop on three legs than to limp on four.

Since we just updated my cancer dog health tips page and finally wrote complete details of my cancer care diet, it is only fitting that we remind you how dog food is best served for three legged dogs.

The healthiest diet for your three legged dog is best served from the Tripawds Large Pet Bowl.

This and many other cool products that help raise awareness and support this website are available in Jerry’s three legged dog store. Got your 2009 Tripawds Wall Calendar yet?

FYI: Don’t forget to raise your dog’s bowls up off the ground to reduce strain! Read our updated health tips for more canine cancer and amputation recovery advice.

When we recently met Joel – whose dog Moose inspired us to proceed with Jerry’s amputation – he mentioned a southern California talk radio host who might be interested in our story.

So just the other day, KVEC’s Dave Congalton had us on his program for a phone interview about the upcoming Nature – Why We Love Cats and Dogs to air February 15, on PBS (check local listings for time and channel).

Dave had some great questions and we wanted to thank him for sharing our story. But rather than us telling you about it, you can download the KVEC podcast here and listen for yourself!