OMG, AbbysMom!!!! LMAO, literally……I just woke my husband up I was laughing so hard!

We didn't take Zack out much after his amp – most of his time out of the house was to the vet for chemo & the follow-up blood tests. Of course, all of the docs and staff treated him like a rock star, but people in the waiting room often said things like they felt sorry for him ('aaaaaahhhhh' or 'that poor dog'). I always chocked it up to the fact that they were sitting in a 24-HR emergency waiting room, so most likely had their own pets' misfortunes on their mind.

Zula's situation is much different. For starters, she is just a year old & gets around with no problems. I always say to people who know I have a three-legged dog but have never met her that if you couldn't see it, you'd never know it was missing. And, because she is a pittie, that's really the first thing people notice. Then, once they notice the leg, they always seem a little surprised. Almost everyone asks, 'what happened to her?' (which when you really think about it is somewhat rude – you wouldn't walk up to a person missing a limb and just blurt that out, but I'd rather they ask than just stare…) and I always take the opportunity to explain that the SPCA found her with an infected leg, removed it & we adopted her that way. I also add that they say it was a car accident, but we have found other scars on her, so we're pretty sure she was in dog fighting. I figure, why not kill three birds with one stone while I have people's attention!

My favorite, though, was a few weeks ago….we had her out for a hike at some waterfalls that are a tourist attraction in the Poconos. We got the usual comments/questions all day, but on the way back to the car, a family walked by us on the other side of the parking lot . We were probably about 20 paces past them, when one of the young boys said, without masking his awe a bit, 'Wow, that dog's got three legs – only three!' His voice said it all – he was thoroughly impressed.

We're all used to our tripawds 'wowing' us on a daily basis, but I was so proud that Zula had that effect on a complete stranger. How cool!