Caring for a Three Legged Dog or Cat
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Hello all, newbie to both this site and to the tripawd dog owner world!
Our beloved lurcher, who we estimate to be about 12 years old (she was found as a stray) had her hind leg amputated two and a half weeks ago because she had a soft tissue sarcoma. We hummed and ha'd about the decision for months, but in the end decided to go ahead with the operation rather than euthanise on the advice of several vets. We were told time and time again how quickly dogs adapt, but had particular concerns about Frieda as she's very needy, has attachment disorder issues, reacts very badly to medicine and anaesthetic, and her other back leg isn't vey strong. We were repeatedly told that she'd surprise us.
Well, more than two weeks on, she's JUST begun to walk unaided in the garden to do her business but can't balance long enough to do a poo so we need to keep her on a towel sling for that. She spends most of the day panting or what sounds like "quacking" which turns into howling and barking if we leave the room. She is unable to get up form her bed unaided and even though we're taking her out every two or three hours into the garden, she has soiled herself three times, wet her bed twice and today vomited everywhere. It is very difficult to get her to take her medicines - she is currently on tramadol and symmetrel (I think it's the symmetrel which has finally enabled her to walk unaided this week) and she was on diazepam for her anxiety, although has had to come off that now as it doesn't mix well with symmetrel.
Additionally, last Saturday night, her wound started gushing fluid and blood so I called the emergency vet who told me how to stem the bleeding and made us an urgent appointment on Sunday morning. I can't remember what it was called, but it was basically liquid, I think like a cyst, which had burst. Horrible for the poor girl.
Me and my partner are finding it very hard to cope with her, and she is obviously finding it hard as well! Luckily I am not working at the moment as I'm on maternity leave so I can give her my full attention, but as she's showing little sign of emotional recovery I know I won't be able to cope with her like this when the baby comes along! Plus, she's HUGE and heavy to manoeuvre which I'm struggling with. At the moment we're taking turns to sleep in the lounge on the sofa bed with her while she complains all night, so none of us are sleeping well and I spend all day sitting on the sofa in the lounge which is a bit depressing. When we go out in the evening to antenatal classes she howls the street down which sooner or later is going to upset my currently very understanding neighbours!
Both my partner and I are really regretting the decision to go ahead with the amputation, it's very hard watching her so distressed. Especially difficult to swallow is the knowledge that it has cost us over £1,100 (which was money saved for the baby) which, if we now have to have her put to sleep anyway, seems like a total waste 
So sorry to write such a long, depressing diatribe! I needed to put my thoughts to screen somewhere where folk might be sympathetic, plus I would be really appreciative of any advice anyone has to offer.
Please can anyone help - advice or sympathy very welcome!
Alex
Welcome to Tripawds, your future posts will not have to wait for approval.
I'm sorry your girl is having so much trouble, and I'm also sorry I can't stay long right now but I wanted to get your post approved so other members would have a chance to respond.
I'll check back later today.
Karen and Spirit Maggie
Tri-pug Maggie survived a 4.5 year mast cell cancer battle only to be lost to oral melanoma.
1999 to 2010
Okay....first of all...you have come to the best place for support and advice and from people who really understand!! You can vent, scream, cry here in a ssfe environment with no judgement!
Trust me, we all do!!
Secondly.....take some deep beaths in and exhale slowly....SERIOUSLY...do it now, it helps! B R E A T H E......B R E A T H E......B R E A T H E........
This is still very early in recovery, ESPECIALLY for an older large dog! For the first three weeks of recovery, I was devasted that I had made a horrible decision!! My Happy Hannah, a somewhat chunky, fluffy Bull Mastiff who, by Bull Mastiff standards was considered "mature", whined and cried, could not get comfortable, was just pretty misearable overall. She was onTramadol, Gabapentin, an antibiotic and Rimadyl. I had to do some adjusting to get the right balance.
Compund your pup's recovery with some "emotional issues", and it may take a little longer than most!. It could also be that she is having phantom pain . This happens when the brain is still firing off messages to the nerve endings for aleg that is no longer there...very painful. You may ask your vet about Gabapentin. It works well for that...for pain in general. Is Symmatrl (sp?) an anti inflammatory? Rimadyl is very helpful if she is having arthritis or weakness in her legs.
It is important to try and keep the pain meds in her on a steady basis. If the lain gets a head start it's harder to keep it under control. And a tummy coated with food is necessary too. You may ask your vet about Pepcid to help settle her tummy.
How much does she weigh? What dosage of meds is she often? Pain meds can make her feel dizzy and undsteady sometimes. It could be...could be...that you can cut back on the Tramadol and see if that helps. Now, here's the crazy part...she may not be wanting to get up because she is IN pain and may need more pain meds! Panting, whining, crying can all be a sign of pain OR a reaction to pain meds!! Wetting her bed can be a sympton of pain meds too. Craaaaazy journey!!
seroma ...is that the fluid build up she had? How does her incision look now? Is she eating, drinking?? Any tail wags yet???
You may want to check into harnesses to help her navigate for awhile. Also, gentle stretching and massaging her before she gets up is helpful too.
Any dog with "emotional issues" generally takes a little longer to adjust.
Pug Maggie...her mom Karen will be posting more..took six weeks to adjust because she hated chsnge among other "issues"!
I know the recovery period is so hard!!! You are exhausted...you've not had sleep...you want your girl to feel better...you were emotionally spent trying to decide what to do prior to getting to the point of amputation. For whatever it's worth...this is all normal. Ugh! Normal, yuck! Again, 2 1/2 weeks is not very long in the recovery process st all.
Itsw very important that you maintain a strong confident and positive energy. Be upbest and give lots and lots of praise! Do you have a friend she likes who come come over and visit and bring some favorite treats? Something to give her a little switch up inher day?
YOU ARE NOT ALONE, OKAY?? Stay connected to us! She will get better! Her sparkle will come back!!
Sending lots of hugs and a bucket load of zzzzzzzz's!
Sally and Alumni Happy Hannah and Merry Myrtle too!
Happy Hannah had a glorious additional bonus time of over one yr & two months after amp for osteo! She made me laugh everyday! Joined April's Angels after send off meal of steak, ice cream, M&Ms & deer poop!
Thank you both so much 
It is easier knowing there are understand people who also know what they're talking about! Also (I know it sounds dreadful, sorry) it's a relief to hear that not all dogs make the miraculous 5-hours-later-and-they're-jumping-on-the-sofa recoveries, which is all I seem to be hearing from friends and professionals - which obviously makes me think that there's something terribly wrong with Frieda!
I too have wondered if a lot of it might be a reaction to the meds, as she's dreadful on metacam (I wonder if that's the same or similar to rimadyl?) and she can't have it at all, so maybe she's having similar issues with tramadol? I hear it's an opioid? She was on 2, 2x a day, then 2, 3x a day and now back to 2, twice a day again, on the advice of a few vets. Pre-op she weighed 30.5kg, but I'm not sure now.The symmetrel, we were told, was more for neurological pain, and I googled it when I came home - am I allowed to post links? Apologies if I'm not:
This seemed to explain it a bit more. Think it's fairly new to the market (in the UK, at least).
You're spot on - it was seroma , I kept thinking sarcoma but know that was the type of cancer she had so it couldn't be that. The wound looks fine, and the swelling has gone down, although the vet thinks there's more fluid that will have to come out at some point. Frieda's due to have her stitches out this coming Monday so I'll guess they'll tell us more then.
We've had one tail wag - well, stump wag, the poor girl had no tail when she came to us and we seem to be gradually removing more bits of her body! Think she's terrified to imagine what we might take next! She is eating well, apart from this morning, because she clicked that I'd tried to hide her tablets in the food so didn't touch it. I'll have to revert back to cheese and butter to trick her. She went from drinking nothing and us soaking her food with water to get fluid down her, to drinking three bowls a day which the vet said was normal if she's panting a lot.
Thank you again, Sally, for your warm and helpful response. Really glad to hear that Happy Hannah made a good recovery and that it was all worth it VERY reassuring to hear that two and a half weeks isn't long - because even the vets are saying they think it is. I'm definitely going to take your advice about stretching and massaging her and try not to be short tempered when she's howling at 4am… And will ask about Gabapentin too.
I feel very cheered now!
Alex
Hi Alex, welcome the club nopawdy wants to join! I hope you don't mind but I moved your post here to "Size and Age Matters" because this is a great place to see how other dogs of her age and size have coped. Your story will add to our collective knowledge and help others when they need it most, so thank you for sharing.
Rest assured this is only temporary. Some dogs take longer to bounce back, not every dog is running around the next day, especially older and larger dogs. You are not the only one who's ever experienced this, I promise, you are not alone.
Some dogs are just more sensitive to this big adjustment than others, and it sounds like you definitely have one of them. In addition to the pain medication adjustments (Tramadol could be the big problem here, NSAIDs like Rimadyl and Metacam, not as common in side-effects as Tramadol's), one of the biggest things you can do for her is to be a strong, pawsitive parent who gets her life back to normal as soon as possible. By normal I mean, doing your best not to cater to her by hand feeding and bringing her things, but by requiring her to get up and move about just as she did before. It's SO hard but as one of our favorite vets says, this "tough love" goes a long way:
Tripawds Founders Jim and Rene
tripawds.com | tripawds.org | bemoredog.net | triday.pet
I understand a lot of what you're going through. My father-in-law had a massive cardiac event the day Nixon was diagnosed with cancer. I had to leave Nixon with my vet and drive 14 hours away to be in ICU for my FIL and my husband. Nixon (and Cookie) lived in the vets office for over 2 weeks. Nixon appeared to have a fracture while I was coming home. He was in horrible shape physically and emotionally. I took him home one night and was going to put him to sleep in the morning and he had other plans. We did go through with the amputation and I brought home a dog who refused to let me leave the room ever. Even if I tried to get a shower, he'd just empty his bladder where he was so I would come down and clean him up. I looked and smelled very interesting after a week. you can only get so clean with a washcloth! My vet actually started keeping him for the day just so I could get some sleep and shower. Not in the kennel but in his office or at the front desk. If they dared to put Nixon in a kennel, he'd stand up, evacuate his bowels and/or bladder, and then lay down in it. Nixon hates urine, poop, and being dirty so this was very odd behavior!!!!
Nixon had many ups and downs in the beginning but it took close to 3 weeks before he'd even try to stand up on his own at home. He could do it at the vet's but not at home. I'd take him to the vet and have to get the vet tech's to carry him in on a stretcher. He loved that actually.
MANY of us doubt we made the right decision the first two to three weeks. Sometimes every hour. I know all the medications were overwhelming to us and many made Nixon pant uncontrollably. I also discovered that he had a lot of gas during that first month so I had to give him liquid simethicone for children after every meal or else he was miserable
I'm really sorry to hear Frieda is having a hard time. My boy Shiloh (60lbs, 13yo) recently went through a front leg amputation and several of the medications they prescribed really set him back. He couldn't even stand until we stopped one of the pain medications- and another one made him feel better, but he had a severe reaction to it as well. I'm hoping most of your pup's issues are just sorting out the right medication at the right dose. It is a lot for them to adjust to, and the wrong medication making them feel strange or sick doesn't help. (Also, my boy whines and cries/howls a LOT for almost a week whenever he has anesthesia. For some dogs it makes their heads extra funny for a while.)
We had the same doubts, thinking about what we had done to him, as well as the financial impact (we had a lymphoma scare right after surgery which luckily turned out to be a false positive!). It's one of the reasons why I didn't sign up for a forum account until after he was past the worst of it. I also slept on the couch the first two weeks because he wasn't well enough to be picked up the first week, plus we wanted him as close to the door as possible when he remembered to ask to go potty instead of going in his pen (which the first week he only wanted to go out at midnight, 2am, 3am, 4:30am...). But we breathed, we were patient, and we waited. Some of them have a rough time at first, but it's worth it when they start to feel normal again and hit the turning point where they're ready to get back to their regular daily routine.
In the meanwhile, do what you can to take care of yourself too while you weather this out. Especially with a baby on the way! It's great that your partner is also splitting some of the care with you.
Did anyone recommend cold or heat packs for the seroma ? Part of our aftercare involved cold packs every few hours for the first few days, followed by heat packs the next few days, and I think it helped Shiloh with his seroma . It also seemed to relax him, so it probably helped with the pain in a non-medicated way. We also bought him a ThunderShirt which just applies gentle pressure to their body (like a hug) to help with some mild anxiety (German Shepherd trait). And keep reevaluating her meds. Like others have said, she might have too much, not enough, or be on the wrong kind still. 2 weeks is still very early in the recovery process, especially for our older pups, but they do turn around!
Firstly, apologies for not checking back on here for a while. Secondly, thank you all for your kind words and invaluable advice. The great news is she is SO MUCH BETTER! And I think lots of you were right - I believe it was the meds causing many of the difficulties. She's not 100% her old self, but she is certainly heading in the right direction, toileting properly, not howling EVERY time we leave the room or house (but still quite a lot!) and even sleeping through the night. She let me have a lie-in until half past ten this morning, I never thought I'd see that day again
jerry, it was very helpful when you said that it was best to keep things as normal as possible. Granted, we couldn't keep everything normal, and we still can't, but routine is calming for us as well as for Frieda!
ohmynixon, you poor thing. What horrible timing, and you must have been exhausted having to stretch yourself so thinly. Did it all work out in the end? I really hope so.
gennabeast, Shiloh sounds as though he's reacted in exactly the same way as Frieda. Is he past the worst of it now? And you're so right, I had no idea exactly how much of an impact the meds could make.
Thank you all again for being so positive and supportive, it really made a big difference in my hour of need
Alex
Awwwww Alex, that made my day. I'm so hoppy to hear you've all found a new normal! Did you adjust the medication at all or did she just get used to it?
Three-paws up to Frieda and your pack, may the recovery continue to get better and better! No need to apologize for being away, enjoy your time together and whenever you can, drop by with an update. We're cheering you on!
Tripawds Founders Jim and Rene
tripawds.com | tripawds.org | bemoredog.net | triday.pet
Thanks for the great update! Realy good to hear that things are continuing ro get better!
Jerry recntly made a point piggy baxking on an interview with a vet. She noted that "recovery" (from the surgery ), generally takes about two weeks. "Adustment" (walking, balancing, getting back to some sense of normalcy, etc) takes about one month. Paraphrasing.
Keep us updated and enjoy the "sleep-ins"!!!
Hugs to all!
Sally and Alumni Happy Hannah and Merry Myrtle too!
Happy Hannah had a glorious additional bonus time of over one yr & two months after amp for osteo! She made me laugh everyday! Joined April's Angels after send off meal of steak, ice cream, M&Ms & deer poop!
Paraphrased perfectly Sally, thanks.
Tripawds Founders Jim and Rene
tripawds.com | tripawds.org | bemoredog.net | triday.pet
Frieda, that's fantastic to hear that your pup is doing a lot better! It was the same thing with our boy. He just suddenly felt well enough and determined to go back to his normal lifestyle, and it was all rapid improvement from there.
Shiloh is doing great, and he's still finding ways to improve just a little more every day at 7+ weeks in. Every time I think he's got it all down, he still figures out a new way to do everything a little better.
He's still not super comfortable sitting for more than a minute, the balance is harder with just one front leg, but he's pretty comfortable laying down and getting up pretty often and very mobile. I do think his attitude is a little more perky since the amputation, which makes me think his sarcoma actually was bothering him more than he was showing us before the surgery.
So glad to hear she's doing much better now!
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