Caring for a Three Legged Dog or Cat

Hi

First, I’d like to say a huge thank-you for this site. I’ve browsed this over and over since day 1 of my dog’s amputation. In the small hours of the middle of the night, I’ve found answers and reassurance from reading other people’s stories and advice when everything seemed like it would never work out.

Our dog is a 13 year old border collie/lab cross. We adopted her 10 years ago from a family who couldn’t cope with a hyper-active collie and two small children. Ceilidh has been the best dog we could have wished for. She’s trained for marathons with my husband and cheered us both up when we’ve been ill or had operations ourselves. She’s made me laugh every single day we’ve had her. We’re back to normal, but now it’s her turn.

We had to have her back leg amputated due to a malignant tumour in her knee joint. The initial test showed cancer cells, but when tissue/more cells were taken from the joint after the amputation they didn’t find any. This means that we aren’t doing any further treatment. 

The first four weeks were full of ups and downs - stitches had to stay in for an extra week due to a small amount of inflammation on the wound; getting the right pain-med balance from the vets (they weren’t strong enough for her) but then they were too strong and followed by an awful upset stomach that lasted a week, meaning we were up and outside at all hours of day and night. My poor Ceilidh was going through it all. Happily, she is getting back to her normal self.

At her age, the vets said it would take slightly longer for her to recover, which is fine. There’s no rush. 

My vet pretty much told me to let her get on with it and get her off the Gabapentin and pardale (paracetamol/codeine). She’d been on 300mg Gabapentin and 2xPardale taken 3 times a day and we gradually reduced them to nothing last weekend. Today, though she’s so restless. I’m seeing small twitches in her stump and she’s now only on Metacam (an NSAID - I’m in the UK) for her arthritic front shoulder. Most nights she will wander around, but it’s gradually got better. Luckily, I am reasonably unaffected by a few hours of interrupted sleep.

My main concern is, is it unusual for her to still be bothered by nerve pain in the stump after 5 weeks? Instead of lying down, she’ll pace, or try and lie down, only to move again a few minutes later. I accidentally tapped it really lightly half an hour ago - this didn’t cause the restlessness - and she yelped like the leg had just been removed. I hope it was just an overreaction due to surprise, because I’ve touched it before without a problem, and there was a long cuddle session with her afterwards, but I just want to help her be well again. I feel so helpless at times. There are good days and bad, or less good, days it’s probably 75% good and 25% not so good, but going in the right direction.

Any advice or reassurance would be great!

Thank you all for your strength and support.

Heather