Meet Selig, our 9,5 year old Airedale, stubborn like most terriers, joyful, independent and ... a real surviver!

Actually I meant to thank this website a long time ago. It's almost 2 years now, since we opted for the amputation. Selig means happy in German, and our Airedale is as happy now as he had always been, a very balanced dog, that loves to snif around and put his nose just about eveywhere, including fox holes, that he rvisites egularly with his 3 legs.

It all started with a limp that would not go away, the first diagnosis was tendinitis, then the X-ray began to show a suspicious shade. The first time we heard the word amputation, my reaction was: I will never do that to my dog! When his time has come he should go, I thought, without painful operations. Then I found this website and I read the testimonies. I also  understood what not amputating meant, a life of pain, and a fracture that could happen at any time, maybe when he was home alone, maybe when we were travelling. My teenage son, who has grown up with him, didn't hesitate a second: amputation would prolonge his life and eliminate the pain. I realized how much the fear of amputation is our fear of handicap.

To cut a long story short, Selig was up and about very soon after the operation. The pain was  gone, and he learned very quickly to adapt to the new situation (if fact he had not been really using his leg for a while before). Now he can do all that dogs do, only not so fast (except when he tries to run after a cat). He was vey soon back to be his cheerful self, and I learned another important thing. Dogs don't care what they look like, and people are very kind to tripods. He takes advantage of both attidudes.

He is a survivor. His cancer turned out to be a localized bone tumor, that does not have methastasis. Before the tumor, he had also contracted lesmaniosis (caused by a dog parisite common in the Mediterranean) and almost died of it, as the disease does not exists where we live and the vet did not recognize that the various problems he was having (eye infection, weakness, stifness, and many more) were all symptoms of one disease. He was saved by a search on the web!

Now it's so normal to have a tripod, that when I see a 4-legged dog running, my first thought, is wow is he fast!