Hi

I’m new on this site, my name is Anna and i live in Iceland. My Icelandic sheepdog female Valkyrja had her right rear leg amputated 5 days ago so I found this website when I was looking for some information about dogs that have gone through the same surgery.

Here is Valkyrja story.

When she was 2 days old puppy her brother did suckle on her inner right thigh and made a wound and did damage a little part of a muscle! I took her to the vet and she went straight to surgery where they had to cut some skin around the wound and take a small part of the damaged muscle.

When she got older she has used her leg wrong because of the shorter muscle but with no pain in that leg.

Now Valkyrja is 5 years old (she will be 6 years old in September), in February this year she and my other dogs went out for a walk ( free running) this was a cold day with snow and ice and where I live we have a lot of lava rocks. Valkyrja was running when she slips on a ice and goes flying in the air and lands on a lava rock with her right leg! Her leg got so swollen and she was limping so she went to the vet and had a x-ray where they could not see any break only swollen hook and she went home with medicine and if this would not get better she could have laser treatment.

The laser treatment did nothing and month later she was still the same but the vet could not find anything wrong so they thought it was just a bad sprain.. I told them I was sure it was something else wrong because I know this dog.

After 5 months of limping I wanted another x-ray but the results from that ware bad bone bruise and MAYBE a tendon injury, the treatment was laser and rehabilitation! That made her only worse and in more pain! So I did say no to this treatment and did ask for a better x-ray because something was wrong and she was in pain!

Now her pain was getting worse and they finally did help her to get in a MRI (in Iceland we don’t have MRI for pets) and then we got some bad news and everyone ware surprises of the outcome! three of the muscles ware completely torn apart and the one muscle was hanging together on a string (1/5 of the muscle) so the vet and a human doctor ware amazed how she has been moving her leg and using it!! They had never seen a injury like this so the x-ray was sent to Germany to specialists.. They too had never seen injury like this so the only thing to do was to put her to sleep or take the leg so it was a easy choice!

But when we were waiting for results her pain got so bad that pain killers did nothing for her.. She was crying the whole day so she got a morphine patch and with that and her tables she for the first time for weeks she could sleep and relax and every 2 days she had to get new patch.

Friday the week before they did amputate she got a new morphine patch, Saturday her pain got much worse but she could get little rests, on Sunday she was crying nonstop and did not want to move at all and her temp was about 36°c and her body was going in to chock! She was inmited with fluids and stronger meds and that next thusday she was scheduled for amputation!

Here is a heartbreaking video of her : https://www.you.....e=youtu.be

The surgery took about 3 hours and they did wake her up slowly, when she finally did wake up she did open her eyes and went to back to sleep but then she did open them up again and did stand up and went walking around the room like nothing had happen! Later she went out to pee and she was walking with NO problem and did even try to run up a hill!

She had little pain the first day and on day 2 she had her tail up again and she only needed her morphine patch for 4 days. Now it is day 5 after amputation and she is doing super and she is on painkillers (Canydril),  keflex (antibiotic) and she will be on Amitriptyline (antidepressant) for 5 months.

Valkyrja day 1 after surgery ! with her tail up

Valkyrja Day 4 after surgery

Here is a link to a youtube video of her on day 4 : feature=youtu.be

Anna & Valkyrja