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
To Sully! Interesting, we are celebrating another Sully here just now havi g aphis seven month ampuversary! He's a big Great Dane and, after a rough recovery, is doing great! His family did not do chemo.
Tell us more about your pup. Are the vets saying he has osteosarcoma? How long ago was he "diagnosed"? Have they done any chest xrays? Just curious why they so quickly ruled out amputation. Were any of them Orthopedic Surgeons?
So yeah, mosey around the site, start a new thread for your Sully and let us know what kinds of questions and cconcerns you have. One thing you'll find, statistics don't mean much around here and no dog jas a timeframe stamped on his butt!
Hugs to you and Sully
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!
Hi deevila,
I felt the same way you did initially - I really struggled with the amputation idea and wondered for who's benefit it would really be for in the end. What helped me a lot was that so many lovely people on this site and in other places have said that whatever decision you make, you are making it from a place of love and are doing what is best for your pup and your family. For me, what made me decide to go with the amputation is that I knew I wouldn't be able to manage Clyde's pain medication schedule very well when I went back to work and my extreme fear of a pathological fracture. I know I could not live with myself if that happened, and since I live alone and have to work, it could have happened while I was gone. So for us, this is the best of a bad set of choices. I am not doing chemo because sadly, I just can't afford to. At this point, I'm just trying to give Clyde a pain free existence for whatever time he has left.
Good luck to you and Sully - whatever path you decide will be okay and will be done from a place of love.
Best,
Kristin and Clyde (aka Clyde doodle)
Good luck to Clyde - I think today is surgery day? We will all be thinking of you!
Welcome to Sully's pack! Would love to hear more about Sully - as was suggested, start your own forum topic for him.
Otis - 106 pound lab/Dane mix, lost his right front leg to osteosarcoma on Febuary 9, 2016. Four rounds of carboplatin completed in April, 2016. Lung mets August 25, 2016. Said goodbye too soon on September 4, 2016. Lost his adopted sister, Tess, suddenly on October 9, 2016. likely due to hemangiosarcoma.
Wherever they are, they are together.
Hi Clyde and everyone,
We also received an osteosarcoma diagnosis this week for our Husky, Maya. She is a rescue and we have had her for 8.5 years so we think she is between 9.5 and 10 years old. The first vet passed off her limp (and lump on her front leg) as arthritis and didn't even offer to x-ray. Three weeks later another (very compassionate) vet saw her and immediately did the x-ray and gave us the terrible news. She is in terrible pain when walking and puts no weight on her leg. She is scheduled for amputation in a few days. At first this decision seemed so hard but then you learn that that is not even the worst of it since this cancer is so aggressive. I would love anyone's comments on chemo decisions for a doggie this age. I am heartbroken and so is my daughter (Maya was her 12th birthday present) but more than anything we do not want her to suffer. No nodules in her lungs yet but there are tiny white spots the vet suspects could be cancer. I really appreciate learning about this site and talking to folks who have walked this road before us.
Welcome Maya and pack, your future posts will not have to wait for approval.
Maya is beautiful!
You should consider starting your own thread under Presentation and Diagnosis so your questions don't get lost here in Clyde's thread.
My personal opinion on age is it is not so much the number but how old in spirit your pup is, and how otherwise healthy. It does seem that the older pups take a little longer on average to recover from surgery, but I'm not sure about how chemo affects older pups.
Karen and the Spirit Pug Girls
Tri-pug Maggie survived a 4.5 year mast cell cancer battle only to be lost to oral melanoma.
1999 to 2010
Hi Clyde 
You are coming home today 
Let us know how you are feeling, we are all thinking about you here!
Sending you lots and lots of good energy, have a good rest, you will be hoping around feeling great real soon
Eurydice 77kg/170lb Great Dane limping end of April 2016, amputation (right front leg/osteosarcoma) 4 May 2016 6 courses of carboplatin followed by metronomic therapy, lung mets found 30 Nov 2016. 3 courses of doxorubicin, PET scan 26 Jan 2017 showed more mets so stopped chemo. Holistic route April 2017. Lung X-ray 5 May 2017 showed several tennis ball size mets, started cortisone and diuretics. Miss Cow earned her XXL silver wings 12 June 2017, 13 months and 1 week after amputation and 6 1/2 months after lung mets, she was the goofiest dawg ever and is now happily flying from cloud to cloud woof woofing away :-)
2 Guest(s)
