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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I work for a pet adoption center and we recently had to make a tough decision to have a leg amputated on Minnie. Minnie is now two years old, some kind of Terrier/Hound blend, maybe 30 pounds. She is full of spunk! She's been in a foster home with a very experienced foster. Minnie had some issues prior to having her leg amputated, but now she has gotten worse.
She may let you pick her up, but if you put her down she may go after you. Or, she may go after you for picking her up. She may go after you if she is laying on your lap and you have to adjust yourself, therefor moving her. Her foster tries to figure out what the trigger is. The foster can do anything to her and Minnie doesn't care. I'm not sure if she is associating human touch with pain?
Minnie also tends to resource guard...especially her crate or bed. Oh, and she likes who she likes and hates who she hates. We love her! We came across Minnie at the local county shelter and pulled her to our facility. She was originally found as a stray. We are trying to get Minnie up to par for adoption!
Help! 
Welcome to Tripawds, your future posts will not have to wait for approval. I hope you don't mind that I moved your post since it sounded more like a behavior issue than a recover issue.
I typed you a nice long response but my work cyber security closed my browser and I lost it....arg!
Now I have to run to a meeting but I wanted to approve your post and see what ideas our members might have.
I'll check back later.
Karen and Spirit Maggie
btw, Minnie sounds like a great pup, just my type!
Tri-pug Maggie survived a 4.5 year mast cell cancer battle only to be lost to oral melanoma.
1999 to 2010
Hi and welcome! Sounds like Minnie found some great guardians for her fostering experience!
So overall she's doing OK? When you say she had "issues" before surgery what exactly do you mean? If this aggressive behavior was out of the blue and not like her at all I'd be inclined (in my non-vet way) to think it was pain related. But if she has a history of being territorial and well, opinionated 
then this sounds more like she is just getting very comfortable with her current foster situation and her true personality is coming out. You know foster care better than I do but from what I've read about how dogs are on their best behavior for a few weeks after adoption, then the real personalities come out, well, this kinda sounds like that situation to me. Maybe the amputation just happened to coincide with her transition?
Also, is she on any pain medication? What is her mobility like otherwise?
We'd love to see some pics, and would be happy to get the word out about her adoptability in our Rescue Forum so keep us posted!
Tripawds Founders Jim and Rene
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