Caring for a Three Legged Dog or Cat
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Elsa, our 7 year old greyhound had her rear right leg amputated on 21st July due to osteosarcoma. The surgery went well and her wound appears to be healing well, too. She's due to return to our local vet on Monday to have the stitches removed and then is starting her first round of chemo (Carboplatin) at the Animal Health Trust, Newmarket (in the UK) on Friday 7th August.
One thing is bothering me, though - her fur is starting to very slowly grow back from where she was shaved for the op but i'm worried that it might stop growing once the chemo starts. Am I being a neurotic mum and worrying unnecessarily? 
Any information would be greatly appreciated!
The chemo didn't affect Murphy's hair at all. He has long hair and it took forever for his hair to grow in completely, but it finally did. He had a different chemo, ccnu.
Donna
Donna, Glenn & Murphy
Murphy had his right front leg amputated due to histiocytic sarcoma at 7 years old. He survived 4 years, 2 months & 1 week, only to be taken by hemangiosarcoma at 11 1/2 years 6/12/17
Read about Murphy's Life on Three Legs
I've never heard that as a side effect of chemo, but sometimes it does grow in differently than before. That however is more of a side effect of the amputation site than the chemo I think, since it happened to our Jerry and he didn't have IV chemo.
Try not to worry, at least it's growing back!
Tripawds Founders Jim and Rene
tripawds.com | tripawds.org | bemoredog.net | triday.pet
For my Happy Hannah, the shaving from the surgery site seemed to take a long time at first. But yes, it grew back! She had four rounds of carboplatin with no hair loss problems at all.
And yes, this whole journey makes us all neurotic and worry about everything! But this IS one less thing to worry about!
Hugs to you!
Sally and Alumni Happy Hannah and Merry Myrtle too!
Happy Hannah had a glorious additional bonus time of over one yr & two months after amp for osteo! She made me laugh everyday! Joined April's Angels after send off meal of steak, ice cream, M&Ms & deer poop!
Well, I am the black sheep of the Tripawds family in this experience, and I think I may be one of very, very, few, but chemo not only slowed my Polly's regrowth of her surgery shave, (She had 2 surgeries to remove the cancer in her right front leg, before she ultimately had amp surgery, and had to take steroids while having her surgeries to make sure her platelets stayed up; steroids also have a negative effect on fur growth) and she also lost about 60% of her fur while going thru chemo. Her oncologist said he had never had this much hair loss in any of his other pets receiving chemo, but my Polly was always a bit of a medical enigma... However, it all grows completely back when chemo is done, and it is was just as soft and beautiful than before. Being half hairless didn't bother Polly at all, she still was happy and active. This pic below, is Polly 2 years ago on her birthday July 25th, and had just finished all her chemo, so you can see a lot of the fur she lost, but was still my beautiful, cancer-kicking girl... 🙂
Love,
Bonnie, Angel Polly, and new girls
I did want to add, I almost forgot, that my Polly did not have OSA, but hemangiosarcoma, so our chemo route was a bit different, and she had a total of 12 treatments.....We went very aggressive against this ugly, aggressive cancer, so our treatments, which included 6 rounds of doxrubicin, is a very strong drug, and dogs just deal with things differently as well.
Bonnie, you aren't the only "Black sheep" of the family. I don't know if it had anything to do with the Chemo or not but Sassy still didn't have all of her fur when she crossed the bridge. She had one patch on her back. I will preface this by saying my vet who did the surgery did shave a lot of her.
this is a picture of how much was left to grow back in this was taken probably about a month or two before she crossed
This was in the spring after her amputation in Nov
Right after amputation you can see how much she was shaved
Sassy is a proud member of the Winter Warriors. Live long, & strong Winter Warriors.
sassysugarbear.tripawds.com
07/26/2006 - Sassy earned her wings 08/20/2013
05/04/2006 - Bosch, Sassy's pal, earned his wings 03/29/19 fought cancer for 4 months.
"You aren't doing it TO her, you are doing it FOR her. Give her a chance at life."
Those photos are so helpful Michelle, thanks!
Tripawds Founders Jim and Rene
tripawds.com | tripawds.org | bemoredog.net | triday.pet
Hi! Nice to meet you, my puppy Eva is an Osteo dog and we had her leg removed in May. They shaved her and she looked so silly and I definitely thought her fur wouldn't grow back, as when she was a puppy she had a lot of ringworm and her fur never came back in some of the spots.
Well, we do carbo too, five rounds (we're on our third, we just took it.) Now, Eva has all kinds of silly issues (feel free to peruse our blog, we've had quite an interesting experience I feel, haha.) but her hair grew back well! By now you almost cant tell they shaved her besides just one little line because her fur grew back in a weird direction??? But anyway, she's a shorthair dog so its similar.
This is now. 64 days later.... With three rounds of Carbo.
But what I WILL say is she has some small patches of hair loss both on her residual limb and also the shoulder on the other side (not really sure about that one, maybe cos that's an injection leg) and we assume theyre from chemo. we haven't had them scraped yet but as they are not red or inflamed, no one feels the need to scrape unless they look bad or i get worried that theyre worse. Theyre small, half cm by 1cm approximately.
so that's been our experience, but of course everyone is gonna see different results! I just know that Eva was never concerned with what her hair looked like, she was just happy to be feeling better! 
Eva is so pretty! Thanks for sharing your experience!
Tripawds Founders Jim and Rene
tripawds.com | tripawds.org | bemoredog.net | triday.pet
Thank you all for your feedback - it's very helpful to hear other peoples' experiences I just had it in my head that the chemo would halt the growth of her fur completely and she's have to spend the rest of her life wearing a jumper to cover her modesty!
Must admit that i'm feeling rather anxious on Elsa's behalf for her first chemo session on Friday. I SO hope that she's not nauseous at all - currently she's eating but only if we hand feed her. I can live with that (despite an earlier 'wobble') but really hope and pray that she doesn't take a step back with her eating 
Thanks again for all your help, guys! 
The vet will give you Cerenia should she have any nausea. One reason I proceeded with chemo for my Happy Hannah was I could stop anytime shoukd she have issues. I didn't start her carboplatin until week three since she was having a rough time with recovery. I was also sooooo nervous! She sailed through all four rounds with no problems! I may have given her one Cerinia at one point because I "th o ught" she may have been nauseous.
As weird as this sounds, I think she actually started feeling much better after her first chemo!!! Craaaazy!
Continue to stay in the moment and make everyday be the best day ever! Update when you can!
Love and hugs to the beautiful Miss Eva! And mom, you're doing great!
Sally and Alumni Happy Hannah and Merry Myrtle too!
Happy Hannah had a glorious additional bonus time of over one yr & two months after amp for osteo! She made me laugh everyday! Joined April's Angels after send off meal of steak, ice cream, M&Ms & deer poop!
Eva had been only eating if handfed for MONTHS before her surgery and when we did the first chemo treatment we had her prescribed Zofran because the Cerenia made her SUPER loopy. We also give her L-Glutamine and a RX probiotic but so far so good! Know that you can always talk to your vet about these things, and this group is REALLY GOOD for easing stress haha.
Shelby had some slight nausea w/her chemo but we got cerenia that helped out - a lot. When she wasn't much into eating, I would put her support on MY bowls (I think the metal might alter their taste buds) and she preferred that. It was only a couple of days of that but for the most part she felt great with her chemo (all things relative)... maybe a tad more snoozy....
And her fur ... well it never really grew back after her amp and chemo. She passed 4 months after her amp but there was peach fuzz so it was on the way.
Hugs and love!
alison with spirit shelby in her heart
Shelby Lynne; Jack Russell/Shiba Inu mix. Proud member of the April Angels of 2014.
October 15, 2000 to April 8, 2014
Our story: Broke rear leg in June 2013 - non-conclusive results for cancer so leg was plated and pinned. Enlarged spleen in September 2013 and had it removed and was diagnosed with Hemangiosarcoma and started chemotherapy. Became a Tripawd January 8th, 2014 and definitive Hemangiosarcoma diagnosis. Three major surgeries in 7 months and Shelby took them all like a champ only to lose her battle to cancer in her brain. We had 8 amazing extra months together and no regrets. #shelbystrong #loveofmylife
Just checking back in to let you know how Elsa's doing.......
She had her first round of chemo on Friday (Carboplatin) and (knock on wood!) everything seems fine! 
We've been watching her closely for any of the signs that they said could happen, but so far so good!
Her fur is continuing to grow back (phew!) and she seems to be getting her mojo back - today was the first day that she actually ran to her food bowl and woolfed her dinner down! She had been very 'picky' with her food and insisted that we brought it to her - being paranoid that she'd starve to death if we didn't, we gladly complied! So it's was a real delight to see her eat her meal without us cajoling her! We stood in the kitchen as she tentatively approached her bowl, pretending to not be remotely interested her!
So, it looks like Elsa's turned a corner 
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