Piper developed a sore on his left rear pad that just never seemed to heal. At first, I assumed he had cut his pad on something in the yard and I blamed his licking for not allowing it to heal.  We took him to the vet's office on two different occasions and tried ointments, wraps and finally resorted to a cone in order to protect it.  When it became even more open and raw, I sought a 2nd opinion. After cleaning the wound, a biopsy and an overnight stay, he was diagnosed with Melanoma of the foot pad on June 1, 2011...at the age of 2.  I was so devastated and didn't know what to do.  Our options were to either try to successfully remove the pad or amputate the leg.  After speaking with the vet and doing ALOT of research, we decided that the pad removal would just be too difficult.  Piper was scheduled for a rear amputation on June 11.  He came thru surgery like a champ and was standing on his own by that afternoon!  Our vet's office kept him for observation for 4 days, which was really a blessing to us since I couldn't be home to supervise him.  Once we got him home, he was doing well with walking but he really preferred to just lay around.  He developed a case of the blues for about a week too   After about 2 weeks, he finally started being more himself and we took our first visit to Nanny & Poppy's house! 

We're coming up on Piper's 1 year ampuversary and he couldn't be doing any better! He acts like he's always had 3 legs   He loves to run in the yard, play with his frisbee and chase birds.  For a 3 legged dog, he sure can run fast 

In the days right after his amputation, I wondered if I had made the right decision, but i know now that I ABSOLUTELY did!  It has given us more time with our sweet boy and that time is very precious 

IT'S BETTER TO HOP ON 3 LEGS THAN TO LIMP ON 4!