Caring for a Three Legged Dog or Cat
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hi I am the primary caregiver for a colony of community cats near my house. They are all spayed or neutered and I feed them 2 times every day. Recently, one of the cats was walking on three legs and after several weeks, I was able to trap her and get an x-ray. She had a broken front left leg at the elbow and after 2 surgical consultations, due to the time it took to trap her, the best option was for her leg to be amputated. It has now been a week and she has been recovering in a large dog crate in my garage. She is healing well. She is not affectionate but not aggressive. Before the surgery, she would come up close to me when it was food related. She didn't want to be pet - she would startle if I tried to touch her. Once she is cleared by the surgeon, the plan is for her to be adopted by a colleague of mine who has had cats before and understands she has been through a lot. She also has a very sweet dog who has lived with cats and misses them. I hope the adoption works out but Tortie has lived outside her whole life - she is probably about 4 or 5 years old. I don't want to return her to her colony as a tripod but I have 4 cats and it is a fragile eco-system with two divas and their respective side kicks. I guess I am wondering if people have experience transitioning a feral cat to an indoor cat after amputation. Thanks!
PS it was the surgeon from the second consultation that told me about this website.
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Oh my gosh thank you for all you do! And for being there for Tortie when she needed the help. She got really lucky finding her way to you.
There is a great story about Huckleberry that you need to check out! His mama wrote a lot about how he went from feral to indoors, both here and in his blog.
https://paws120.....ipawds.com
His mama is @paws120 here in the forums:
https://tripawd.....ile/17306/
If you private message her I know she will be happy to share some tips.
We are so glad you joined us. It made my day that your surgeon recommended us to you!
Just want to say thank you for all you are doing for those cats. And yes you will find huckleberries story fascinating. And ever so helpful.
Keep us posted, okay?
Hugs
Sally and Alumni Happy Hannah and Merry Myrtle and Frankie 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!
Thank you! I read about Huckleberry in the forums but not the blog yet - it was really helpful! I'll be sure to share those with Torties new mom too. Tortie had a good evening - she is eating more and more. We are getting close to being able to take her cone off (this weekend) and I am going to expand her crate so the surgeon can assess her healing and walking.
Oh awesome I'm glad you already had an introduction to Huck.
Really happy to know Tortie is doing better. Don't tell dogs, but cats are actually better at getting along on 3 than they are!
Funny how things happen, I popped in to check out a fellow tripawd papa's post and literally just bumped into this. I smiled when i saw Huckleberry's name thinking there was another Huckleberry but it was my boy! Happy to help where I can. I'm traveling right now so I'm hit or miss but I'll check in when i can. You're doing a beautiful thing caring for the ferals. After Huck came to live with us a feral mama and her babies found my yard and like yours they are all trapped, neutered, released and are fed twice a day. One of them decided she wanted to be indoors, so Phoebe joined us. Mama, brother, and sister spend a lot of time at my house. I can pet mama but the other two are not into that.
Wishing you luck on your venture, Tortie is one lucky kitty!
Hugs,
Jackie, Bo, Andy, Oscar, Phoebe, and the coolest feral tripawd kitty Huckleberry 
Allen said
I wish this person was still posting. I would have many questions.
One reason we encourage people to register as members is so that they can use the Private Messaging system here. Unfortunately this person kept posting as a guest, so we have no way of contacting her.
However @paws120 is a member, so you can always message Jackie (see the little envelope icon to the right of her name?) and she will likely get back to you. She is a genius at helping feral cats, and was once an animal control officer.
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