Breakthrough Orthopedic Care Helping Tripawds Live Their Best Life, with Dr. Dujo

Want to know what really helps three-legged dogs and cats thrive? Tune in to Tripawd Talk Podcast Episode #132, when we sit down with Dr. Mauricio Dujowich (aka: Dr. Dujo) — a board-certified veterinary surgeon and certified canine rehab therapist, and founder of the Bone, Joint & Spine Center at The Veterinary Referral Center (VRCCO) in Bend, Oregon!

We think Dr. Dujo is the gold standard of excellent care for a Tripawd’s orthopedic needs!

In this episode, Dr. Dujo explains why rehab matters and how we can protect our Tripawd’s remaining limbs. We also chat about how groundbreaking remaining leg surgeries like total hip replacement in amputee pets are totally possible for the right Tripawd and pet parent.

Listen to our Tripawd Talk interview below, watch and listen on YouTube, and dive into all the details in the transcript posted below.

Listen to the Tripawd Talk Radio Podcast

Key Takeaways for Helping Tripawds Live Their Best Life

Watch and Listen on the Tripawds YouTube Channel

Show Resources

• Dr. Mauricio Dujowich: https://vrcvet.com/dr-mauricio-dujowich
• Learn about Tripawd Cat Moira’s Total Hip Replacement: https://vrcvet.com/moiras-total-hip-replacement/
• Tripawd Remaining Leg Surgery Studies: https://tripawds.com/2021/11/03/leg-surgery-on-tripawds-studies/
• All Tripawds “Remaining Leg Surgery” Articles: https://tripawds.com/tag/remaining-leg-surgery/

Full Transcript: Breakthrough Orthopedic Care Helping Tripawds Live Their Best Life, with Dr. Mauricio Dujowich

TRIPAWDS: Dr. Dujowitch, it’s so nice to meet you. Thank you for being here on Tripawd Talk.

DR. DUJOWICH: Hey! Thank you for having me. 

TRIPAWDS: So did I pronounce your name correctly?

DR. DUJOWICH: Yeah, you did. And actually, most people just call me Dujo or Dr. Dujo, just because that’s a lot easier for everybody. And there’s a story behind that. 

When I got accepted into my residency the people who I did my residency at, Iowa State, and the people who selected me were (not surprisingly) having trouble with my last name. Before I even got there, they just decided they were going to call me “Dujo” and so it just kind of stuck. So I guess it got coined back in 2006, and it’s been like that ever since.

TRIPAWDS: I love it! Dojo. Okay, Dr. Dujo, let’s go with that, I like it. Well, I found you because of a very special cat that you did an amazing surgery on, and we’ll talk about that in just a bit. But first, I would love to help you get to help our audience get to know you because you have what I consider, the gold standard background. 

You’re a boarded surgeon, and you are also a certified rehab therapist. Having those two combinations … I wish every Tripawd in the world could work with a veterinarian like you.

DR. DUJOWICH: It makes me dangerous, I think!

Why a Board-Certified Veterinary Surgeon Got Rehabilitation Therapy Certified

TRIPAWDS: It does, absolutely! Tell me why you chose to go those routes.

DR. DUJOWICH: Honestly, I think an even more impressive route would be if I got double boarded in Sports Medicine. But I’m not there yet, but–and kudos to the people who’ve done that and have gotten there, pretty amazing! But my first exposure to rehab, my first I think proper exposure to rehab was actually during my residency.

DR. DUJOWICH: We at Iowa State had a really strong rehab program, and the people that worked there really opened my eyes to the power of rehab.It was not very long after I’d been there, that it was pretty clear that we did surgery, and then our patients would get better because of rehab.

And that’s where I got really exposed to it for the first time, where I really was able to immerse myself in it more, and see what an amazing job and what an amazing difference we can achieve with our patients with rehab.

DR. DUJOWICH: I was fortunate enough that throughout my career where I worked there was always somebody that I can partner with from a rehab standpoint. I don’t want to say that every single case has to have rehab. But I think every single case can potentially benefit from rehab, particularly, cases where you have neurologic disease or multiple limb involvement. 

For older patients, it’s really hard for me to ever say,”Hey, this patient should not get rehab.” That’s really the exception, it’s very rare for that to happen. So I think everybody can benefit from it just like you and I. I am seeing a rehab therapist right now, because I’m a hot mess, and it makes a huge difference. It keeps me strong and able to perform at the level that I want to perform. And I think that we’re realizing that you can achieve that with our pets, essentially.

It’s sort of this frontier that we just ignored for a really long time, and are now starting to embrace it and appreciate the power that it has. 

DR. DUJOWICH: I think that there’s also a component; we’re surgeons, and we think we’re really good, to a fault. It’s like, “Oh, I’m a surgeon, I’m great, look at me! I fixed this! Nobody else could have fixed that!” But the reality is we’re not that good.

TRIPAWDS: Oh, I don’t know about that!

DR. DUJOWICH: We’re not and (it’s) the patients that are what’s good. They’re good at healing, and they’re good at making us look good. And then you add physical therapy to that, or rehabilitation therapy to that, and that just makes it that much easier and gets us there that much quicker. 

The Gold Standard of Orthopedic Veterinary Care

So I’m a big fan of rehab. And eventually I got to a point where we were expanding our current facility and there wasn’t a certified rehab person in our doctor staff. So it was a great opportunity to say, “Hey, maybe I should do it, guys, can I do it? Do you guys mind?”

It’s something that I always had in the back of my mind and wanted to do. The opportunities, everything just sort of lined up that I was able to do it. And the nice thing about that is it’s not necessarily that I’m performing rehab every single day of the week, because I’m not. I’m usually in the operating room, and my role is very administrative lately. 

But the nice thing is, I can speak the same language as the rehab therapist. That allows us to take that much better care of the patient because we understand each other. Which is something that I thought I really understood before, and thought, “Oh, it can’t be that challenging, or it can’t be that hard. I’m sure I kind of get it.” 

It wasn’t until I got certified that I really appreciated “Okay, this is really a different language. This is really a different beast.”

DR. DUJOWICH: And I’m super happy that I went through this process because I feel like I can communicate so much better with the rehab therapists that we work with, rehab therapists that I don’t work with, and also be able to formulate plans from post-operative perspective that make a lot more sense. Did I answer your question?

TRIPAWDS: You absolutely did. And I just love that you’re able to give this holistic approach to a case because it’s what we all want. Because a lot of times a pet parent will get a completely different opinion about a Tripawd’s situation from a surgeon, than they would from a rehab therapist. 

So to have somebody like you, being able to merge those two worlds and get both perspectives together, and look at a case and give a pet parent an answer based on those perspectives, is so helpful.

It’s really confusing on our side to have these two different attitudes about “How am I going to fix a TPLO tear on a Tripawd? And a surgeon will say, “We’ll do surgery!” And the rehab person might say, “Well, maybe we don’t need surgery.” So to have somebody like you bring the two together is so important.

I’ve always said that pet parents who had a physical situation of their own, a major surgery like an amputation, they would never leave the hospital without being told they need rehab therapy. So why wouldn’t it be the same way for pets?

What Responsibilities Do Pet Parents Have When Caring for a Tripawd?

TRIPAWDS: Now when it comes to 3 legged dogs and cats, what do you feel is the role of the pet parent in caring for that animal? Once they lose a leg, or, let’s say, once they adopt a three-legged dog? A lot of people adopt a three-legged pet because they feel sorry “Oh, I want to save the dog!” 

But there’s a long term consequence to being on three legs, and I saw it in my own dog, who was a German shepherd that lived to age 12 on 3 legs, and I saw it towards the end of his life it caught up with him, and I know I did a lot of dumb things when he was a puppy that probably contributed to that. 

So I’m wondering, in your opinion, what’s my role as a pet parent?

DR. DUJOWICH: It’s sort of a hard answer. I think the main thing is be aware, have that awareness that you have a Tripawd. And then from there kind of say, “Okay, how can I give my dog or cat the best life possible?:” And “What is most important for me? And what is most important for my pet?”

DR. DUJOWICH: I really struggle with saying, “Hey, you’re a Tripawd. You can’t do anything anymore!” And so I definitely am not the kind of person that will say, “Hey, you know your dog can never run again. You’re only supposed to walk them, and that’s it, and so deal with it!”

It’s hard. We need to have fun, too, right? But also have an awareness that with a lot of fun is going to come some wear and tear. We have to be prepared for that, so how can we minimize that wear and tear? I think that probably as a pet owner, the best thing you can possibly do is make sure your dog doesn’t get overweight.

Why Weight is the Biggest Influence on a Tripawd’s Quality of Life

DR. DUJOWICH: I think that’s so important. The weight is so important. I can’t tell you how many times I see amputees where the owners literally love them to death, and so the dogs are obese. It makes it that much harder to get around, and it’s that much more wear and tear on the remaining limbs and joints and back. 

I think that’s one really simple thing that everybody should ideally be able to accomplish, just maintain a good body weight. Let’s maintain good musculature, and let’s keep you well muscled, because all the other joints are going to be more loaded, and there’s going to be more impact there. So if we can absorb the impact with muscle, then we’re going to be better off, and it’s going to hopefully be less wear and tear.

DR. DUJOWICH: I think those 2 things could go a long way, and as far as how to get that muscle. Low impact activity is great. So if you have access to water, for example, maybe they’re not going to be swimming, but they’re going to be walking along the edge of the water and getting that resistance without impact. 

Or you get a life vest and you help them in the water, and you get that low impact exercise. Or you take them to a rehab therapist if you have access to one. And it’s almost like going to the gym or doggy camp. They get that exercise in a controlled environment where you can kind of push them, but not overdo it, too, and play around with that. 

What about Joint Supplements for Tripawds?

So I think that that could go a long way, and then you start getting into the supplements, which is very hard to make a recommendation on, in my opinion. The way I kind of simplify it is, I look at the supplements and I say, “Okay, these are basically what they’re trying to sell you are essentially precursors to what’s in joint fluid.

So you look at glucosamine, chondroitin omega-3 fatty acids: those are all precursors to joint fluid. The thought process is, if your joint is abnormal, say the viscosity of the joint is supposed to be like motor oil (it’s supposed to be clear as water, the appearance of it). 

And if your joint is abnormal, more than likely it’s going to be kind of an off yellowish color, maybe just not necessarily clear. And it’s going to be very watery. So you think of that and you’re like, “Well, that’s not a good environment for my cartilage, and that’s going to result in more wear and tear.”

DR. DUJOWICH: And there’s these inflammatory cells that are sort of consuming that nice joint fluid. So when there’s any degenerative joint disease, and so you say, “Well, I need to stock up on the building blocks so that I can keep this as normal as possible.” And that’s kind of how I think about supplements. 

I’m not going to reverse anything per se. I’m not going to prevent it. But I’m going to hopefully slow it down because I am completely stacked with essentially building blocks, so that when I do need it it’s ready to go. I’m not slowing down the process essentially. So that’s kind of how I view it. 

And there’s really not that many great studies out there when it comes to supplements. Because there’s really no need to, from a company standpoint. They sell them just fine, and the last thing they want to know is that it doesn’t work as good as they’re saying. So it’s a little tricky. 

And even the dosing nobody really knows for a lot of these supplements. But there are some where there is slightly more evidence, or more stronger evidence. If you ask me if I had to pick one, I’m usually going to say Omega-3 fatty acids.

What Supplements are Helpful?

DR. DUJOWICH: If I had to go with something injectable, I’m usually going to say Adequan, which is a glycosaminoglycan, and that’s a precursor. Also, those are the things that I think you can do. But I tell people, “Don’t beat yourself up if you can’t afford these supplements, because they can be pretty pricey.”

We don’t know if it works. And also don’t beat yourself up if you can’t buy a name brand one. Go to Costco, get some salmon, fish, oil. And if you have a big dog, you can use the same dose that they recommend. If you have a small dog, give him half of as much.

Those are the things I usually talk to owners about, and my simplified approach. Of course you can get a lot more detailed and technical, but that’s kind of the simplified approach where I feel it helps everybody kind of wrap their head around it and get a better appreciation of what supplements maybe can and can’t do.

TRIPAWDS: That is a great way to look at it, and I know a lot of people, the first thing they do is they go out and buy a bunch of supplements for their dog who just lost a leg. I tell them “You might want to put your money towards a rehab visit, and just go talk to somebody before you start buying a bunch of stuff and  you don’t really know if it works or not.” 

So for me, our Nellie gets Welactin Omega-3s once a day, and that’s pretty much what I do. Oh and I keep her weight down. It’s pretty simple. She’s a really healthy 9-year old shepherd on three-and-a-half legs, but that’s a whole other story. 

Can a Tripawd Dog or Cat Recover from a Remaining Leg Surgery?

But when it comes to a Tripawd who has a leg injury on one of their remaining legs, which we see quite a bit in our community, unfortunately we see a lot of cruciate tears and people panic, of course. 

Because how are you going to have a two-legged dog? How’s an animal going to recover from that? So when I read about Moira the cat I knew I had to talk to you. Tell me about this very special three-legged animal who had a remaining leg injury.

DR. DUJOWICH: Moira was adopted by one of our ex employees who not surprisingly used to work in our Rehab department, and she’s phenomenal. She’s just a wonderful, wonderful human being and just a huge heart. And she adopted Moira knowing that she was a project. All credit has to go to Moira pet parent because she’s just an amazing human being, and just saying, “Hey, I’m going to take this on and let’s give her the best life possible.” 

Moira the Three-Legged Cat Recovers from a Total Hip Replacement

And so things that came to mind when we first saw Moira was: what are the other limbs doing? Yes, sure, we have one back leg, that’s a problem. We have another back leg that’s no longer there. But what are the front legs doing? We want to make sure that when we do a surgery that we’re not going to overload anything else more than we need to. 

And if we are going to overload something that we don’t want to overload, then we need a plan for it and have a good approach, so that we don’t trade in one problem for another, right? Because here we’re going from a patient that potentially was used to ambulating in three legs to some extent to acutely being that much more sore during the early postoperative period, potentially. And then, if there’s issues with the front legs, then are we going to make that worse?

DR. DUJOWICH: And so those are things that are kind of running through our minds and making sure that we have an otherwise healthy patient that can withstand a surgery like that. When you talk about dogs and cats (and actually cats are not as well studied), but dogs that have a front leg–sorry, a back leg amputation–they put about thirty, thirty three percent or so of their weight on that back leg. When they used to have both legs, they used to do forty percent, so it’s taking on quite a bit of load. 

And so if that made sense, front legs take sixty percent of the weight, back legs take forty percent of the weight. You take one back leg away, and that remaining back leg is now taking about thirty, thirty three percent of that weight. So it’s disproportionately a lot of weight on that leg that’s remaining in the back.

And you can imagine also, the front legs are also getting a little overloaded. So if we have a patient that’s a Tripawd that has any other orthopedic issue or neurologic for that matter, it’s something where we say, “Yeah, let’s definitely make an even stronger case to try to make them better.

DR. DUJOWICH: And Moira was a particular challenge because of her size. It’s not unheard of to do a total hip replacement in a patient, in a dog, that has been an amputee. Actually I think the last study that came out was basically a retrospective study of thirteen dogs published in 2020, if I remember correctly, describing that amputations in dogs and total hips work. 

How He Managed a Tripawd Cat’s Hip Replacement Limitations

If you’re missing a leg and we do a total hip replacement, you can still do just fine, because that was the big question. Are we going to overload these implants and have it be a total disaster? And should we not put these patients through this? And with hip replacements, it’s a surgery where it’s high risk, high reward. 

And ultimately, in a normal dog that’s got four legs, our conversation is, typically, hey, these guys have about a ninety to ninety five success rate.

TRIPAWDS: Good!

DR. DUJOWICH: It is really good, it is! Actually fantastic, considering what we’re doing! But now you have a patient with a missing leg. And you say, “Okay, well, it’s going to be a little tougher in the recovery period,” but I think that that’s the toughest part. Once we get past that, you’re smooth sailing. 

The reason for that is because the hip implants are designed to have bone grow into them in the majority of cases. So we have what we call a “cementless hip system.” Where once you place the implants, you have to just wait for the bone to grow into the implant, and then it’s ideally, permanently stable.

Now, in cases such as Moira, one of the challenging things is, we had to deal with cement for the stem component because they don’t make a stem small enough that allows for bone to grow into it hopefully. In future iterations we’ll have that.

DR. DUJOWICH: And that’s a limitation of the surgery, because there’s a small chance that the cement can cycle over the course of time and essentially become unbonded. That could lead to pain. And so that’s the big decision that we have to make. Well, if that happens hopefully, it happens in fifteen years and she’s in doggy heaven by then, awful as that sounds. Then if it and if she’s still with us well, at least we gave her fifteen years of a normal leg essentially. That’s kind of the mentality behind that. So that’s one of the limitations. 

The other limitation you worry about is luxation, and that’s going to be in the early postoperative period that you’re at high risk for luxation. Typically, in dogs that have four legs, we say those first four weeks are the highest risk, because the joint capsule is still healing.

And then with patients that are amputees, we usually extend that to up to eight weeks, just because there’s so much more load going on that leg. And we’re asking a lot more.

TRIPAWDS: Can you explain luxation?

DR. DUJOWICH: Yes, so that’s when the head of the femur pops out of the socket. And so that’s going to be our luxation. What we have with the implant system is the stem component, which is basically a new head with literally a little stem that kind of embeds into the femur. Then we have the cup component, which is on the pelvis side of things. And that’s what we call the acetabulum, or the acetabular cup. 

So there’s basically two main pieces to the total hip replacement surgery. And so we need those to have that perfect marriage where it’s a ball and socket joint. If we perform surgery on amputees, our biggest concern immediately after surgery is that the ball and socket could essentially be overloaded, and the ball just pops out of that socket.

A Tripawd’s Remaining Leg Surgery is the Easy Part

DR. DUJOWICH: And so that was our biggest concern going into surgery with Moira is whether she would be okay with that right off the bat. And the challenging thing is, I think, a cat is a little bit harder to restrict than a dog. A cat’s going to do what a cat wants to do. 

And so I think Moira was pretty special in that she was a very, very patient cat. If you ask me what do we evaluate with our amputee patients, I think it’s important to not only look at the problem at hand, but look at the whole picture. And say, “What is this patient like? Is this patient going to tolerate this surgery? Or are they going to hate life? And are they going to be so miserable that they’re going to compromise the surgery, hurt themselves, potentially hurt somebody else?? 

Take the things that have to come into play. At the end of the day, the surgery is the easy part. But the recovery period, that’s going to be eight to sixteen weeks. That’s the hard part! And so if you have a patient that’s ultimately going to be severely noncompliant, that’s a big, big decision to make whether or not they’re a good candidate for surgery. 

Similarly, we got to think about the pet parent, too.

TRIPAWDS: Yeah, I was just gonna ask about that. What is our responsibility?

DR. DUJOWICH: Right. I mean, it’s something to really, really think about. And so, I’ve had a perfect example, and this is not a hip surgery,but I did a knee surgery on a dog, and this was years ago. And you go through the whole spiel of like “No running! No jumping! No playing! Leash walks. Don’t play with other dogs. Don’t chase squirrels, rabbits, whatever.” 

Otherwise this can fall apart, and any revision surgery is a lot harder than the first surgery, it can be really hard to come back from what we started with.

I don’t want to scare people into saying, “Hey, you should never have surgery.” Surgery is wonderful in the right circumstances, but we want to do it just once.

The Importance of Following Your Veterinary Surgeon’s Post-Surgery Discharge Instructions

DR. DUJOWICH: Perfect example is this dog, two days later, chases a whole bunch of deer. Runs around crazy, and so the owner comes back and says “My dog’s limping worse than when I took it home! Well, what happened?”

Well, he chased deer! And of course the leg fractured.

TRIPAWDS: Oh!

DR. DUJOWICH: And thankfully, we got really lucky, because it was just a fissure, and we didn’t have to intervene. But I’ve had situations. I’ve got a closet full of stories, of things going back, after a few years of doing this (and gosh! It’s been like 20 years now). So almost, it’s really sad, but really wonderful at the same time that you accumulate these stories. 

There’s the … call them war stories, or whatever you want … but you accumulate these stories of things that have gone bad, that a lot of times were so preventable. So much of it has to do with the owners and the pet parents just being on the same page and knowing what they’re getting into, which we try to stress. 

At the end of the day, I get it. As much as we try, sometimes dogs will be dogs and cats will be cats, and stuff happens. But if we’re completely oblivious and we don’t care, then it’s just asking for trouble.

TRIPAWDS: I have heard some stories myself in the community about those kinds of situations. And yeah, we set our animals up for success or failure. It’s on us.

DR. DUJOWICH: Another classic situation is, “Oh, my dog won’t lick the incision. He or she doesn’t need a cone.” It’s like, “Please, please just trust me. Just leave it on, just leave it on, please!” And inevitably, they get to the incision, they open it up. It turns into a big mess, because now there’s an infection. And so just two weeks of tough love, please! Those situations where I know your dog’s perfect, but …

TRIPAWDS: It’s an expensive way to find out that your dog isn’t perfect. And yeah, we have seen those examples here at Tripawds. So it sounds like Moira was a very special cat, and a really good patient during recovery. Did she have rehab after the surgery?

DR. DUJOWICH: So great question and rehab rehab with hip hip replacements is a little bit of a, how do I put it … Rehab with hip hip replacements? I think we’re still figuring out when is the best time to do rehab? 

And if I talk to a whole bunch of surgeons that do total hip replacements my suspicion is that they will say, “Hey, we don’t want anybody touching these dogs and doing rehab.” And the reason for that is because I think that there’s still not enough experience with people doing rehabs on hip replacements, and sometimes we run into trouble. The biggest thing is overdoing it and causing hip luxation. 

Can a Tripawd Have a Normal Life After a Remaining Leg Surgery?

This is when I say, I’m thinking of rehab where they’re bringing in the pet into the hospital or into the rehab clinic and the rehab person is just not familiar with rehabbing a dog or a cat with a hip replacement. And it’s something that honestly, there’s just not that much data out there for. There’s really not necessarily a standard that’s out there of “Here’s the recipe that you should be doing.”

DR. DUJOWICH: And so my biggest concern in the early post-OP period with any dog is, I don’t want them getting in and out of the car, driving long distances to some facility where they might be triggered, or they might fall on the seat as they’re driving over. 

So I do take the sort of a stance of less might be better for this surgery, at least for the first four weeks when we’re dealing with a regular dog. I want that joint capsule to really heal up.

I’m afraid that if there’s a moment of weakness or lapse, or a whoops situation, that that hip might pop out on us. And so most of the rehab is going to be just at home. Stuff like passive range of motion, walking, massage. Those are the things that I’m looking to do typically the one to four weeks with any rehab. 

What’s remarkable about dogs and cats, for that matter, they want to go! They do really good at rehabbing themselves. And actually, one of the big problems is with hip replacements in particular, is they tend to feel too good.

DR. DUJOWICH: I literally have a replacement that we just did last week, and I have a message from the owner saying, “Hey, the sedative is not enough. Can you give me more? My dog thinks that she’s normal.” It’s a good problem. And so the question is, how do we safely get rid of that energy?

And the first four weeks I’m a little apprehensive getting in and out of the car. But then, after that, it’s like, “Okay, let’s let’s burn that energy,” right? And with Moira thankfully, her mom, she’s familiar, she’s in the field, and she knew how to work with her and do the passive range of motion, and keep her from getting into too much trouble, and jumping too much. 

But she was feeling good, right from the get go, and that’s what we tend to see with hip replacements. And that’s the dangerous part: it’s almost a false sense of security. But things haven’t healed up all the way just yet. We have to wait for that bone to integrate. And it’s going to take, depending on the age, about eight to sixteen weeks.

TRIPAWDS: Oh, wow! That is a long time. But it’s in the big picture. If I had to be in that situation I would think it would be worth it if my dog was a good candidate, and I was set up well for that. 

I can’t thank you enough. It’s really nice to know that something like that is possibly an option for a three-legged dog or cat. I had never heard of a three-legged cat having a hip replacement. So I really really appreciate that you guys got the word out about her. And it’s just evolving this science, the medicine is just getting better and better for amputee animals, thanks to people like you who are going out there and doing this. So thank you for that.

It’s a Partnership Between Pet Parents and Orthopedic Veterinary Teams

DR. DUJOWICH: Yeah, no, thank you. And I think, I mean really, thank you to the pet parents, because they’re the ones that are pushing us to do better. And that’s the reason we’re able to do this. I mean, that’s really the only reason. 

You guys are saying, “Hey, I want better. You can do better!” And so it’s pushing us. And I think that’s helping the rehab side of things evolve dramatically and like you’ve seen with the 3D prosthetics that are coming out. 

All these really innovative solutions where people are trying to make things and push the limits, improve upon what we currently have. We’re not settling, we’re saying, “Okay, we can do better!” 

And I think that that comes from the pet parents first and that’s what inspires us to push ourselves. And so I have to say thank you so much for pushing us and trying to challenge us to be better versions of ourselves. I’m really grateful that I get to do this for a living. I mean, I feel like I feel like a kid! It’s so much fun to be able to take care of these guys and really do things that wow us all. That’s what I love to do.

TRIPAWDS: Well, keep wowing us because we really appreciate it. Thank you. It’s a team effort, everybody. Thank you so much for being here, Dr. Dujo, we hope to have you back again someday.

DR. DUJOWICH: Yeah, anytime. Thanks. Thanks so much for having me.

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Want Your Tripawd to Enjoy Better Fitness and Mobility?

Our Tripawds e-book, Loving Life on Three Legs, or How to Help Your Three Legged Cat, are great places to start!

And don’t forget, the Tripawds Foundation can pay for your first rehab visit too!