Caring for a Three Legged Dog or Cat
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Hi all,
Mogli is doing great 5 weeks post op. We have him in weekly PT and he's completed 2/4 chemo treatments with minimal side effects thus far. He is an 8 year old belgian malinois/german shepherd mix, very active/high energy. He is somewhere between 90-100#s.
I am here, looking for some advice on a large-breed, front-leg amputee dog using stairs in the home. We have a ramp for our SUV that he gets up and down fine and he can do the few steps leading into/out of our house... but more than not he totally skips them on the way down. We live in a two story home and have currently moved our bed into the living room downstairs, so we can be with him.
As I mentioned, we have him in PT. But when I asked her about practicing stairs she said they have ramps and would work on strengthening with him. However, each session shes told me he is really strong and does great on everything... I am more worried about him going down the stairs in a slow, controlled manner (he is a high-energy, highly impulsive dog and the surgery definitely did not take that away from him! haha). Some options we have seen are adapting the stairs to make a ramp, but we are renting so I am not sure how feasible that is. Not to mention, it would be a pretty steep ramp. I know there are the slings, we have a good harness with a handle, but I am not sure how confident I am with holding him up using that.
We want him to at least be able to come up stairs with us at night. We still have about 6 months in our current house before we can hopefully find a one-story home somewhere.
Any advice or experience with stairs (especially with large, front-limb amputees) would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
Mogli must be one handsome boy - GSDs and Mals are two of my favorite breeds!
If you only want him to go upstairs at night to sleep with his humans and downstairs in the mornings, that shouldn't be too hard to manage. You could use a gate to prevent unwanted access to the stairs. You can use a harness and a short leash to keep him next to you and regulate his speed going downstairs. You can start by practicing good stair manners on the shorter flight of steps to get outside. This would be a great time to use a squeeze tube for reinforcement because licking takes time - he can't just snag a cookie and rush off. With his breed mix, I'm sure Mogli is one smart dude and will pick up on stair manners quickly. Once he's doing better going down the shorter steps at a reasonable pace, try the full flight of stairs. Don't drill him on the full stairs too much - it's alot of work for a tripawd to handle stairs.
If you've never used a squeeze tube, it's one of my favorite training tools. You can pick up a refillable silicone squeeze tube in the travel section of Target or Walmart - maybe a well stocked grocery store. There's also Amazon. These are designed for lotion or shampoo, but they work just as well with peanut butter, cream cheese, meaty baby food, or puree your own meat with a food processor and water so it's squeeze-able. I like PB because I don't need to refrigerate it and can keep a squeeze tube in my jacket pocket for walks.
Mogli sounds like such a great patient! And doing ramps too? WOW!
It's pretty front-heavy for a front-leg Tripawd to descend stairs, even a strong pup. Going up stairs, they're fine, since they still have all that propulsion power in the two back legs. But descending with one front leg is another story. It's like holding a heavy kettlebell with one arm outstretched in front of you. Try doing things like that and you'll see how your center of gravity changes.
During the first few months of recovery, we never allowed our front-leg amp Jerry to use stairs unaided without our help. We used the Webmaster harness handle not to lift him, but just as a precaution with our hand lightly grasping the handle. He never stumbled, but definitely benefitted from our help taking some of that weight off the front leg.
Eventually, Jerry figured out how to lean on the wall adjacent to our stairs, so he could go down with more confidence. He would use the wall for balance, and descend with his weight up against that wall. He was 8 years old so not young but also not elderly. For my own peace of mind we never allowed him do descend uncarpeted stairs without our help. He could handle carpeted stairs pretty well on his own but we were walking alongside him about 95% of the time.
Thank you for those experiences/suggestions! Mogli definitely amazes us every day, he is such a tough guy! We will definitely have to work on it and I am glad to know that it is possible! We 100% will be assisting him and blocking off the stairs when we cannot! Our PT today suggested that we find some stairs out in the community that have a more gradual decent to practice on, so I am going to be researching and driving around tomorrow for sure! I love the tube idea! That sounds much better, since he gets way too excited with the treats and grabs them so quickly! Thank you again!!!
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You'be gotten great feedback. Just want to say YAY for Mogil👏 Aou ds like he is doing really well. And congrats for getting thro two champs and only two more to go👍
You are truly devoted tom your sweet Mogil:
We live in a two story home and have currently moved our bed into the living room downstairs, so we can be with him.
Love how you have made arrangements to sleep with your boy. My Happy Hannah was a rear legger and never did master going up stairs to mh bedroom. So yeah, I slept down on the floor on a mattress with her every night for over a year.......and loved every second of it.....as did she.😎
Hugs
Sally and Alumni Happy Hannah and Merry Myrtle and Frankie too!
Happy Hannah had a glorious additional bonus time of over one yr & two months after amp for osteo! She made me laugh everyday! Joined April's Angels after send off meal of steak, ice cream, M&Ms & deer poop!
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