Hi Group. Sandee and I are mighty happy to find you. Hers is a long, hard luck story, but if you can bear with me I'd like to tell you part of it so you'll know what an awesome girl she is. Sandee came to us as a Katrina rescue on a foster basis six years ago. She came to New England from Louisiana in early winter, languished in a shelter for weeks, then was finally placed with an elderly couple in New Hampshire. On her first day there, she bolted out an open door dragging a leash behind her and ran off. She spent ten days on the run in the White Mountains, surviving multiple snowstorms and below freezing temperatures before she finally gave herself up to the vet friend who brought her north. With her short southern coat, it's a wonder she survived. Her new owner did not. While she was on the run, the elderly gentleman who adopted her passed away, and she was returned to the shelter. When I met her there, she was the saddest, most pitiful little thing I'd ever seen. We agreed to take Sandee in on a foster basis.

Before the end of her first week with us, she required emergency surgery for a foreign body blockage. The items removed from her stomach included half a solid rubber ball, which was totally blocking the outflow of her stomach, plus multiple pieces of various colored and patterned collars and leashes, a length of rope, and gobs of fabric--bedding and the like. As we came to learn, she'd had a previous foreign body surgery in Louisiana before being brought north. It seemed there wasn't much demand for an incontinent, pit-ish appearing dog with a history of eating inappropriate things. So Sandee is still with us, now an official member of the pack.

Eleven days ago, on a Sunday, Sandee developed a slight limp. By midday Monday, a large, hard lump appeared in the thigh of her left hind leg. She was seen by our regular vet on Tuesday. X-rays showed a large mass. When the thigh was opened, two masses were seen--one more of a fatty tumor, the other hard and ugly but with no bony involvement. Neither could be removed because they were both infiltrative. But samples were collected and sent to the lab for identification. The site was sutured and Sandee came home pending histo results. Over the next few days, the lump in her thigh continued to grow, tearing the tissues away from the sutures, and pushing through the incision site. Lord was it ugly. On Saturday, four days after the procedure we learned the fatty mass was a lymph node, irritated by the drainage from the second mass, a large and angry osteosarcoma. Because there was no bony involvement, it was suggested the tumor might be secondary to a primary tumor not yet identified. Monday she went back to the vet for multiple x-rays to determine if there were any additional tumors. Since there were none to be seen, we opted for amputation. Thanks, I guess, to having already had three dogs with cancers, I'm on a first-name basis with the oncologist and staff at a nearby specialty clinic. They took her in for surgery the following day, this passed Tuesday. We brought her home yesterday.

So <deep breath>, here we come to this wonderful forum, looking for advice and support to get us all through the trauma of the amp and on to life as a tripawd and the owners who love her. She's a tough little softie and has overcome so much, always moving forward, making the best of a situation, no matter how bad or sad it appears to be.