I'm so sorry that you are faced with this tough decision.  My first thought after reading Kirby's story is why the vet at the teaching hospital didn't consider the splint option.  Is there a way to get a 3rd opinion from an orthopedic vet?  Splinting it may be an option, and is good because it's non-invasive. Keeping an active dog confined can certainly be a challenge ( I had to do it once with a very active 6 month old puppy for 6 weeks! Imagine non-stop barking from her kennel ALL DAY LONG!) If it doesn't work, then amputation is still an option.  I understand not wanting to go the implanted hardware route, since it is very invasive and has risks and possible complications even greater than amputation (not to mention the expense.)  I hope everything goes ok and that Kirby's not in too much pain.  This site is a great resource and I'm sure you will get wonderful advice. Please keep us posted!

Lisa

Thanks for your responses!  I suppose I should clarify, when the surgeon first looked at the x-rays he dismissed the splinting option because of how bad the break is, when I took her in yesterday the student vet contacted him again and asked him to take another look and he said you could always try but wasn't really confident that it would work.  So I have decided to have a discussion with my regular vet today before we go through with this as she would be the one splinting it every week and she was she thinks.  I am totally cool going the amputation route I don't think my dog will even miss the leg, she is a trooper!  The other bad thing about splinting it would be that if she did have an acl tear in addition to the break it would have to be surgically repaired after anyway and we have no way of testing for that until the bones heal abit.  She is such a stoic dog that it is tough to tell when she is hurting because she hides it all so if the leg was splinted and healed bad and was a constant source of pain I am not sure I would be able to tell….I mean she got hit walked herself 100m back to our house and sat at the back door waiting patiently for someone to find her no whining crying or panting.  Musta hurt like heck though because her leg was only attached by skin….

Well after having a further discussion with my vet we went ahead and removed the leg.  She said that once she opened it up the amount of damage was amazing…. They were going to keep her over night on IV because she had some blood loss but I wasn't totally comfortable with that as there is no one at the clinic during the night.  I asked if at all possible that I would be able to bring her home because at least I would be able to watch her then.  They called me back a couple hours later and said it was remarkable how fast she came around after the surgery.  She was up and trying to run around!  So I did get to bring her home which was awesome!  I think it was fate we got to bring her home because not 20 minutes after settling her into the kennel she had the cone off and was trying to lick her incision!  Can you imagine the damage she could have done had she been at the clinic and on her own for 10 hours!!!!  After we cinched the cone up it was quite a rough evening and night.  She was agitated, whiny and generally miserable growling at any unfortunate dog who happened to show concern.   I think the cone was the biggest aggrevator because she keeps catching it on stuff and it makes her mad.  She was up and down and up and down all evening and night, I don't think she slept at all.  She has some spectacular bruising and quite a bit of swelling which I suppose it normal for a surgery like this.  She is quite settled and back to herself today.  She is relaxed and slept soundly pretty much all day!  When I take her out for potty breaks she tries to run like a maniac and I am worried that she is going to knock herself over one of these times when she hits the end of the leash!  I know they need to go faster that normal dogs but she is trying to full out run!  After seeing her attitude today I think I definitely made the right decision and I think in a few weeks life will be back to normal! 

Ohhh, Kirby, you gotta take it easy on your human when you're recovering!  It's very stressful for people.  (Oh well, it was worth a shot to say so.  She sounds too outstanding to be reasoned with).  You actually might find Kirby conks out kind of suddenly in the next few days, after having a lot of energy shortly after the amputation.  That happens some times as they adjust to the meds, or some of the heavier stuff they got at the vet wears off (depending on what your vet gave).  Then again, sometimes that doesn't happen.  Results vary!  That's why it's great to hear about your experiences to add to that long list Tripawds has going here!  Oh yes, and usually we can come up with something useful to share too.  But one of the most important things – don't be shy about calling up your vet as much as you want to (as long as that's an option for you).  This was a major operation.  It's totally reasonable that you're going to need a lot more help from your vet than usual as you get through this major recovery with Kirby. 

Welcome to Tripawds!

Hope to see some pictures of Kirby soon.  Did you say why kind of dog she is?  Did I miss that?

She's beautiful!  She is looking good- the pink cast was her color pre-amputation.