Caring for a Three Legged Dog or Cat
Tripawds is your home to learn how to care for a three legged dog or cat, with answers about dog leg amputation, and cat amputation recovery from many years of member experiences.
Join The Tripawds Community
Learn how to help three legged dogs and cats in the forums below. Browse and search as a guest or register for free and get full member benefits:
Instant post approval.
Private messages to members.
Subscribe to favorite topics.
Live Chat and much more!
Register
Log In
Members
Add Topic
Offline
Louie had his Amp surgery, last Thursday. He was eating pretty good until we took him off the Fentanyl patch. He takes Tramadol twice a day.
Yesterday I got him to eat boiled livers. This morning he ate toast. He isnt interested in his regular dog food and sticks his nose up to cooked pork and beef.
Any suggestions on getting him to eat. Louie is a very large Pyrenees and I want to get calories in him.
Do you think its normal day 6 to slow down on the eating?
D
Good question! Search the blogs and the forums and you'll find some helpful advice from existing blog posts and forum topics. Below are a just few, others may have more feedback for you...
Tripawds Nutrition Blog : Get your dog eating after amputation surgery.
Tripawds Nutrition Blog : Get Dogs Eating With Honest Kitchen Foods
Eating Healthy Forum: How to stimulate a dog’s appetite
Tripawds Founders Jim and Rene
tripawds.com | tripawds.org | bemoredog.net | triday.pet
Lupe and I had a food battle both before and after surgery. If you need your Louie to eat, my suggestion is try anything, especially if he's never eaten it before. As Jerry told me once, the stinkier the better...cat food, tuna fish, hot dogs, liverwurst...oh the smells make my stomach turn. Lupe's vet also tried some canned foods that were easy to digest so you can always check with them.
Not sure what Fentanyl does to appetites but switching meds can definitely throw them off.
Come on Louie...you've gotta eat to keep up your strength and show your humans what a Tripawd Warrior you are!
Keep us posted!
-Kori & Angel Lupe
Diagnosed with possible synovial cell sarcoma of right front elbow 5/31/12. Amputation surgery performed 6/7/12. Final diagnosis of histiocytic cell sarcoma 6/11/12. Her soul and spirit were strong, her body was not...my little girl earned her wings 6/14/12. "If there are labradoodles and goldendoodles, why can't I be a cockadoodle?"-Angel Lupe (June 28, 1997-June14, 2012) http://lupepod......pawds.com/
Pain meds like Tramadol can definitely mess with a Tripawds appetite, so this sounds normal to me. Many do get finnicky after surgery, and feeding time can be a challenge. If you're at all in doubt, call your vet to let them know what his appetite is like, it's good to keep them in the loop.
Also, be sure to check our Nutrition Blog for lots of diet ideas that can help get him eating. Let us know what works!
Tripawds Founders Jim and Rene
tripawds.com | tripawds.org | bemoredog.net | triday.pet
We're having trouble getting to eat enough (our subjective assessment) too. I pulled off the patches yesterday and his mood is worlds better as expected.
As I've chronicled, his GI was a little goofy 48-72 hours post surgery but we settled that down a bit pretty quick. As the days have gone on, he has gotten even more picky about it. We started with meat and rice, then meat and cottage cheese and occasionally kibble with peanut butter, then he wouldn't eat anything but super lean meat.... no He's been wanting just cooked elk and we literally have to offer it a palm full at a time because he won't touch any bowls.
I'm gonna give the tuna, salmon and other sticky options a try. He's on Novox for what it's worth. Hopefully this will remedy itself as he gets hungry. At a certain point he has to want it enough to eat his kibble 'cause I'm not grinding up all my elk steaks for him to eat.
Hey Teo and family, I'm going to be that in a couple of days the appetite challenges will be a thing of the past. From what I understand it does take a while for pain meds to work their way out of the system, so it seems normal that he still has a decreased appetite.
I'm know I've said it elsewhere, but dogs have an instinctive ability to save their energy for healing instead of eating. It's hard to watch them not eat, but in almost every instance they will do it.If chemo was involved it would be a different story, and not eating would probably be a sign of a side-effect of the chemo drug. Then it would be a little more concerning. But for a post-amp recovery, I'm going to be he'll perk up in a day or two. Is he eliminating and drinking water as normal?
Something to try: a little tough love. It's sooo hard. But if you don't hand feed, and treat his feeding routine as normal (picking up his bowl 30 minutes after you set it down even if the food is still there) he will soon understand that you aren't his personal chef or elk hunter! 
What is Novox?
Tripawds Founders Jim and Rene
tripawds.com | tripawds.org | bemoredog.net | triday.pet
Meg decided that she didn't want to eat after surgery - we went down the hand-feeding track and even that didn't work. Our Vet advised to give her food with a strong odour that was new to her - e.g fish/tuna/salmon - as her normal food could remind her of the smell of the anaesthetic, so to retrain her brain with something else. This worked for us until we had the Fentanyl patch removed and stopped the Tramal, after that we started offering her "normal" food and she started eating this again - albeit in smaller quantities. When she was only eating smaller meals we panicked a bit - a 40kg dog can't survive for long on what she was eating - but when we looked at the amount of exercise and her mobility levels we realised that the small meals were fine as she wasn't moving around a lot to start. When her mobility levels increased, so did her appetite and she's well and truly back to her normal gutsy self - very food-motivated!
and TUNA is the WINNER!! straight tuna went down in one gulp, kibble with tuna water went down with a load of pills (ohhhh the un-touchables??) in it.
Jerry - Novox aka Carprofen aka Rimadyl is an NSAID for pain and arthritis. Teo has been on an "as needed" dose of 75mg tablets for elbow dysplasia (diagnosed in the now missing limb at 1.5 years old) .... when I took Ibuprofen for my legs he got a dinner then breakfast dose for his legs. So it's his current pain med so we don't have to transition from steroids to non steroids. He loves it and it's the only pill he takes like a treat ..... weird given the last few days eating dilemma.
threads like this are precisely why I love Tripawds.com. a great meeting of ideas and opinions to help those that are at wits end..... often the solution is easy and someone else has solved your dilemma.
Thanks all!
TUNA!!! YES!!! And with pills, no less. I'm very happy for you and your large pup! Various foods Jackson has loved while recovering: Christmas turkey and its skin, rice and ground beef, rice and ground chicken, boiled beef liver, cottage cheese, cheddar cheese, peanut butter, broccoli, and sweet potatoes. We never had to go the 'stinky food' route, but I was all prepared, as the lovely community here suggested! Tripawds do rule!
ACL tear in right hind leg 12/5/12 and scheduled ACL repair surgery 12/21/12. Pre-op xrays revealed osteosarcoma. Amputation 12/28/12. Chemo (carboplatin) started Jan 10, 2013 and ended on April 5, for a total of 5 doses. He handled carbo like a champ! No side effects. We started metronomic therapy at his third chemo and have been also doing some holistic treatments. He's a lively, playful 10 year old huskie-boarder collie and a very proud member of the Winter Warriors! Our love. Our funny little guy!
Wooo hooo! Look out Charlie Tuna, here comes Teo to gobble you up!
This is terrific news, congrats.
I didn't know that Novox was another name for Rimadyl, thanks for that bit of info. They must really make that stuff taste good because our Tripawd Wyatt Ray ate them up after his surgery too.
Tripawds Founders Jim and Rene
tripawds.com | tripawds.org | bemoredog.net | triday.pet
Quad pug Tani has been taking Rimadyl for over a year- she gets her's as a treat after eye meds!
Yarrr! the poor appetite rears it's ugly head again. Teo is off the antibiotics and such but still on Novox. It might be time for the tough love, which is harder on me than him I think. We'll see how some steak scraps from dinner tonight go over but I think we are about to see how long it takes for him to get hungry.
Ooooooh. Good luck with the tough love. It's soooo hard. But I'll be it won't be long before he realizes it's a prixe fixe menu now!
Tripawds Founders Jim and Rene
tripawds.com | tripawds.org | bemoredog.net | triday.pet
It's been a roller coaster but we're on an upswing over the last few days. After a brief conversation with the vet, and an inventory of left over meds in stock at the home to avoid a trip to the office, Pepcid AC and some left over bowel activators seem to be clearing things up. We also stopped the Novox to see if he shows signs of pain - none!- and help settle the acid tummy a bit.
It's so hard when your pup can't use his words, and I'm not so psyched on Teo just using his purge valve, to let you know what's going on.
We are on a pure kibble diet and he chows down, so the scatter it on a plate trick is helping.
If he's eating kibble now that is a GREAT step forward. This is terrific news. Just curious, what kind of kibble is he eating?
Tripawds Founders Jim and Rene
tripawds.com | tripawds.org | bemoredog.net | triday.pet
1 Guest(s)
