Caring for a Three Legged Dog or Cat
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Our 10 yead old Foxy has dislocated his shoulder. Our vet says it pops in quite easily, but 'falls' out again very easily. We were offered expensive surgery which we can't afford, amputaiton of the leg or euthanasia. A 2nd vet said the same thing.
In the end we asked the vet if we could leave the leg and see if it healed, with the option of removing the leg later on if it doesn't improve. Our dog Colin does seem to be using it more, and our research on ligaments suggests that ligaments take many week to heal, and also they can't tell from an X ray if they are completely ruptured or not.
Plus we have a trip in 3 weeks which we can not reschedule, so we felt it was better for the leg to come off when we are back home and able to care for him properly. He is managing fine at the moment, not in undue pain.
Just wondering if anyone else had come across this situation and what had happened?
Thanks
Hi Foxy & Family, thanks for joining us here.
Have you talked to a certified canine rehab vet and had him evaluated by one? That could really help shed some light on what you might expect if you wanted to go the rehab route. See this post for details on finding a good rehab center. And I agree, in my non-veterinarian opinion, if you can wait on the surgery and he's not in any pain, or likely to dislocate it again, you might want to hold off until your trip is over.
Good luck! Please let us know what you decided to do.
Tripawds Founders Jim and Rene
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How big is your dog? The bigger the dog, the less likely it is to heal completely. If your dog is not in pain and is able to get around okay then I don't see anything wrong with waiting a few weeks to amputate. Did you get quotes from a veterinary surgeon for the shoulder surgery? Depending on the size of the dog it might not be that much more than an amputation. It depends on surgical technique and how much your vet would charge for an amputation (some amp surgeries can run over $2000).
Pam
Thanks. I should mention we are in New Zealand, so the alternative vets and rehab centers just aren't available here.
The shoulder surgery to repair the ligaments would be in excess of $3000, and the amputation would be around $600-700. It's still not cheap, and we want to put in a bigger dog door as well, so looking at around $1000 all up - but we can afford that - just. The thing with the ligament repair is that we could pay all that money, and still not have it work - and still have to amputate. Which is why we thought that amputation was our best option.
Colin is a very slim dog, so weight is not an issue, and he's managing well using mostly 3 legs at the moment. He does have some arthritis, but is on medication for that and is well under control. So we're going to leave it for now, and reassess after our trip.
Do any of you have other dogs? We have a puppy as well, and I'm thinking we'll have to seperate them until Colin is fully healed.
Thanks, I'm really glad we came across this site!
I'm not a vet, so take what I say with a grain of salt...
If I were you I think I'd leave him with someone you can really trust for the time you are on your trip. Then I'd move forward with the amputation if the other surgery is financially too much or doesn't have excellent odds of being successful. For separating the dogs after the amputation... is he kennel trained? We don't have other dogs; but to keep Spencer contained and taking it easy, we did keep him in his kennel for the most part for about 3 days after surgery. He wanted to be up and active about 1 day after and needed to take it easy. And then, for the 2 weeks after surgery we kept him in the kennel WAY more than normal (normally he was only in the kennel when we were out of the house). So, if you are keeping him kenneled, it should help to keep the dogs separated too.
Good luck!
Jac and Angel Spencer. Spencer was 5.25 years old. He fought a grade 3 fibrosarcoma, started on his shoulder. Left front leg amputated in August 2011. 15 weeks of chemo finished 12/22/11 (mytox and adria). Lung mets found on x-rays 12/28/11. Started carboplatin 1/6/12. Went to Heaven on 2/27/12. I miss him like crazy every day. See his blog here: http://spencer.tripawds.com/
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