Hello - I came across this website while trying to find resources the day we found out that our sweet girl would have to have her rear leg amputated. Izzi is an 8 year old German Shepherd/Black Lab mix, and probably the sweetest dog you'll ever meet... I know, I'm biased! 

We adopted Iz from the Humane Society when our youngest was 8 months old and she became a part of our family instantly. She was also 8 months old and shares a birth month with our youngest who is now 8, so naturally she believes they are twin sisters. Either way, she was meant for our family. 

About 4 weeks ago, Iz was hit by a car on the busy road in front of our house in the evening. She's black, so he didn't see her until it was too late. We have lived in our home for over 4 years now, and have never experienced her wandering out into the busy road, but rather into the fields next to our house. We are still scratching our heads as to why she was in the road. Thankfully the gentleman who hit our dog stopped and looked for her, and then came to our house to see if we knew who owned a black dog. My husband took her to the animal hospital that is right down the road and we were told that her femoral head was broken and when we were finally able to get her into the vet, they said the only real option was the amputate because there was not enough bone left to fix it. We were devastated, but also very grateful to still have our girl. Izzi is a very active dog who is always playing with her little brother Jax (German Shepherd), so we didn't really know what this would mean for her. While they were in surgery, they found that her bone had nicked her femoral artery, so they had to fix that too and it was something we had to watch as well because there was a potential for major tissue damage.

Fast forward to 4 weeks post op. Iz healed beautifully, and she is still finding her footing with 3 legs. I don't think I have celebrated so many successful poops and pottys as I did those first two weeks! Now we are just trying to figure out what works and what doesn't work for her. We bought her a harness to help support her (that she loves to wear) and we got her a new bed. I have carpet runners coming because she falls when she round the corner to the door, and I bought socks for her to help with the slipping. About a week and a half ago, she slipped and fell going outside and it was literally the worst thing to witness. She started screaming and shaking and all I could do was hold her and tell her it was going to be ok. 🙁 

Recently, she has mostly stopped wanting to get up at all. Sometimes I have to pick her up by her harness to get her to go to the bathroom, or walk around the house. Part of it might be because she is discouraged by the falling, but she also seems a little weak in her remaining leg. She won't come upstairs at all anymore, which is new this week. I get it though, it's a lot of stairs to climb even when we help her. We've started throwing the ball for her again, but not far or for long, because it seems to be the only thing that makes her visibly happy (besides snuggles!) but I don't want to overdo it.

I'm still trying to figure out what we can do to help strengthen her body and make her feel better, but I also feel very uneducated. If there is anything you can suggest, please do! She is such an important part of our family, and I want to help her quality of life.

Thank you for this resource!