And introductory ramble.....

For ten years, we had three dogs who all ended up passing away within about 14 months of each other. Between the three of them, we dealt with all sorts of issues.....heart worm (successfully treated!), poisoning, blood transfusions, diabetes and two years of blindness being some of the more challenging ones.

I pretty much thought I had seen it all........and the Universe said "HA!"

After two dogless years, we found George at our local Animal Shelter. He's a 94 pound Shepherd Mix with 'mix' being the operative word! (picture to follow as soon as I figure it out). He was thought to be around seven years old at the time and now he is around nine.

A few months ago, the limp began. I'm assuming that we have all been there?

Maybe he had something stuck in his paw? Maybe he pulled a muscle? Cancer was not something that I had even considered but here we are with a front right leg amputation scheduled for this upcoming Tuesday (October 2nd).

At first, we were horrified by the idea of amputation....how could we do this to our beloved boy? Especially with a front leg....how will he cope? We initially decided to just use pain meds until he wasn't comfortable any more and then 'let him go'. But then his x-rays from this week showed a spread and we decided that he would most likely suffer a terrible fracture before succumbing to the cancer and that would be traumatizing for him and us.

Then we started looking at YouTube videos posted by Tripawed owners and it gave us hope that maybe he could be one of the dogs that not only copes but just keeps on truckin, business as usual and so here we are.

I am so very grateful to have discovered this forum and I am sure that I will be returning over the next few days with questions but in the meantime, having begun to read through many of the posts and topics, you have all shared a wealth of information that has been so helpful.....Thank you all so much!