My poor 7mth old Aussie Shepherd had a tree fall on her 2 weeks ago tomorrow.  The initial concern was the fractures to her skull and the risk of odeoma, brain damage or possible death.  She showed great signs of recovery on the first day, so they thought she'd be fine.  The next morning she refused to stand on one of her back legs, so an additional x-ray showed 3 fractures in her femur.  They tried to pin the leg, but a few days later the pin had migrated out and more fractures caused lower down in her leg, so we were given no option but to amputate.  It has only been 4 days since her amputation and I had no idea what to expect from my bundle of energy who now only has 3 legs.

We picked her up from the vets and to our utter amazement, she was up and walking.  We were thinking that we would be coming home with a dog that would take weeks, if not months to learn to walk again, but instead we are struggling to restrict her activity until her wounds (including her head wounds) heal.  This is when I started searching for information on 3 legged dogs and I found your website.  As we still don't really know what we will and won't be able to do with our little girl, it is inspirational to hear everyone's stories and know that we will have a perfectly able dog.

Unfortunately, I found this website a couple of years too late for my old Shepherd x Kelpie, who had a tumour in his shoulder and we were given the option of amputating or just letting nature take it's course.  We decided that months of rehab and learning to walk again would be unfair and when we thought the cancer had gotten the better of him, we had him put to sleep.  If I had have known that recovery was this quick and that he wouldn't need to learn to walk on three legs (he was already limping on it anyhow), then my decision would have been a whole lot different.

So I thank you, for creating this space and making people a little more aware of what life can be like for our 3 legged friends.