Caring for a Three Legged Dog or Cat

Diesal is my 3yr old cross breed boy , and my very best friend .

The last 5 months have been horrific for him, and im so proud of his ongoing bravery and ability to bounce back.

After chasing a cat out of our garden, late one evening last October, he was hit by a car, which badly broke one of his legs and punctured one of his lungs.
Remembering the night, still brings me to tears. The shock/ terror and fear that flooded my body when i realised the situation was very much real, and not a terrible nightmare. The car had knocked Diesal underneath a parked car, before speeding away, leaving a dark empty road, and the haunting sound of Diesal sreaming in pain. I raced over to him, and tried to calm him as he thrashed his head on the underneath of the car and paniked . It was clear i could not pull him out quickly without the risk of causing him more pain, so i ran back to the house to get my phone. At this point my poor Diesa thought i had abandoned him, and once again screamed for this life. My heart was breaking at the sound, but i knew i needed to get help. My neighbour saw me, and thankfully was able to help me organise getting D to the vets. The next day or two were just a big blurrr. The vets were not able to operate on his leg for 8days, because his breathing was so unstable. They were not sure that he would survive, at first, but on day 8 he had his leg pinned and wired back together, leaving a 3 pin external fixator on him.

Poor Diesal is such a sensitive chap, and was severely traumatised for weeks and weeks. Nothing seemed to be going right, and the pins had to be adjusted 5 times, which ment D had to be anaesthetised, poked and prodded about each time, taking us back to square one . Aswell as that, he kept getting infection after infection, and was a real sorry state :(

4 and a half months later, when all pins had been removed, and D was attending twice a week physiotherapy, the vet suggested he should be admitted for 'investigations', as he was showing little signs of improvement, and had yet another chest infection.

I was devastated to hear that his lungs were in a bad way, and the leg had healed in the wrong positon. The vet now wanted to amputate his leg. After months of pain he had been through trying to save his leg, he would now have to undergo more. It was heartbreaking. I was terrified his lungs would not cope with another operation, but thankfully they did.