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.
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Hi! New Tripawd mom here! Macy is almost 2 weeks post-op having her front left leg amputated. She’s doing great. She loves riding in the car and we hope to continue this when she is able and released from vet care. My question is what is the best car harness for her? We have been using a belt that hooks into the seatbelt and then hooks onto her harness but now I am concerned of her balance in a car. Is there a special harness anyone recommend that will still allow her to stand up and look out the window, but also secure her so she doesn’t fall onto the floorboards of the car?
Hi Kelly and Macy, welcome! Your future posts won't need to wait for approval so post away!
Glad to hear she's doing so well. Just curious, what was the reason for the amputation?
So car rides are tricky for a front-leg Tripawd. On the one hand (paw!), it's good for her core strength to be able to balance while the car is in motion. Of course you want to keep her safe too, so the strap through the seatbelt is a good idea. There's a company called Sleepypod that makes the only truly crash-tested harnesses we know of, but we don't believe they work too well on a front leg amputee dog. It's so hard to fit them anyways with a normal harness (we recommend the Ruffwear Flagline if you haven't seen it). The Flagline is not crash tested but it does have a handle on top that you can run a seat belt through. She may still be able to fall onto the floorboards though, depending on her size. Sleepypod does make a nice small crash-tested dog crate if she's small enough for that.
The compromise most folks make is a car hammock. You'll see all kinds of feedback on hammocks (as well as how other people handle car rides) if you sift through these search results. A hammock is nice because it keeps them securely in place. The drawback is that securing a harness with the seatbelt is tricky in some models. We like the EzyDog hammock because you can secure a harness with their seat belt restraint (see product info).
I'll be curious to see what you come up with so please keep us posted!
Thank you for that information! We did order the Ruffwear Flagline harness for her daily walks when they resume after seeing the reviews on this site. I guess I was thinking there was something different to use while she was riding in the car. I will look into the hammocks that you mentioned.
to answer your question about why she had to have her leg amputated, it was because she had soft tissue sarcoma and her ankle/wrist of the left leg, and our surgeon recommended amputation, in lieu of just removing the mass because of how large it had grown. We have been watching it for about a year with no significant change and then in a matter of weeks it doubled in size and we knew at that point something had to be done.
You are so welcome! I hope you like the harness. And yeah, Ruffwear does make a tested car harness but it doesn't have a top handle on it in the same way the Flagline does. I'm not sure it would stay on a front-leg Tripawd so that's one reason we've never carried it. But I'm happy to order it for you if you'd like.
Sorry about that nasty old tumor! Yes they tend to do that, we've seen lots of members join us for the same exact reason so you're in good company.
Let us know what other questions you have and how we can make life hoppier for you and Macy!
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