Caring for a Three Legged Dog or Cat

As you may know, our boy Bean had his amputation just over a month ago now, and he's doing really really well.

On the first day that we were able to take him home, he was hiiiigh as a kite (he just stared at us and talked for hours on end).

He got his staples out about three weeks ago, and his peach fuzz is finally turning into real fur!

We've done three weeks of training classes now, and we can actually do an out of sight down-stay and a sit-stay with no problem! He has a bit of trouble stopping once he gets to running, but other than that there've been few problems.

He's still having difficulty getting down the stairs (and by difficulty I mean that he takes them WAY too fast), and we have to help him.  Sometimes he pushes himself too much (especially when my parents dogs visited for a week and he had to chase Bear around to chew on his feet), and he gets muscle pain in his hind legs, but we were told by our vet that we should just give him some Metacam on those days so that he sleeps a little better at night.

I took him into the downtown area of my town last week, and I've NEVER had so much attention in my life! Rather, I should say, I've never had a dog have so much attention in my life!  People were coming out of stores to give Bean pats and treats.  I feel like I should make a sign that says “Lost my leg in the war”, so I don't have to explain his story so many times!

We (my other half, Bean, and I) would like to thank everyone again for their immensely appreciated support during the time leading up to the surgery.  We were nervous wrecks, and tripawds.com definitely helped!

- Bean, Erin, and her other half

(Oh, and if I ever find my camera extension, I will upload pictures of Mr. Goofball Bean!)