To all members of the international Tripawds community:

The Tripawds UK Facebook Group and Tripawds UK Rescue Page manager has clearly made her thoughts known regarding the recent "split from tripawds.com" so we would like to provide details about recent events that resulted in our disassociation with that group and page. She has posted false accusations and defamatory remarks about about us personally (Tripawds founders Jim and Rene) and how we manage Tripawds that we feel a public response is required to set the record straight.

For more than 7 years, we have taken painstaking efforts to grow and maintain a website, discussion forums, live chat, free blog network, and social media presence in the best interest of the entire Tripawds community. Our mission is to provide a platform of support for anyone facing a cancer diagnosis and/or amputation for their beloved pet. We offer a vast repository of information here at tripawds.com and in our discussion forums and featured blogs. We only sell products that we have either personally used and reviewed, or that we feel would be beneficial to anyone coping with the diagnosis, treatment, recovery and care of an amputee dog or cat.

When Caroline Murphy first created the Tripawds UK group, we reached out to her with an offer to manage an official chapter representing Tripawds® in the United Kingdom and informed her that TRIPAWD/s is a registered trademark which we own.

We presented a few simple requests we had if she wished to use the TRIPAWD/s name. We provided and she agreed to abide by certain rules and procedures for managing the group bearing the Tripawds name. Among other things, these policies included making a Resources document available on the group's Files tab filled with links to many of the most informative Tripawds blog posts, forum topics, video interviews and product reviews. We also suggested that Caroline frequently remind new group members of the many helpful resources available in the Tripawds blogs and forums. Finally we asked Caroline to be a regular contributor in the Tripawds News blog and discussion forums, to encourage members from the United Kindom to connect with others in the Tripawds UK Facebook group.

We were granted Admin privileges to the group, but let Caroline manage it, which she did effectively. Eventually, the information for the group's About section and suggested pinned welcome post were deleted. The helpful Tripawds resources for new members that we had provided were replaced with links of Caroline's choosing. Instead of directing those faced with an amputation for their dogs to informative articles, members were now greeted with links to view Caroline's appearance on local television. Instead of a reading list of helpful links, members were provided one link to the Tripawds branded UK rescue page we created at Caroline's request.

Well aware of her health conditions and understanding her fragile emotional state, we chose to allow Caroline to continue managing the group and page as she saw fit. Over the years, however, our posts would be periodically and without explanation deleted when attempting to offer beneficial feedback by directing group members to our various resources and/or e-books.

Recently, Jim has been researching effective management of Facebook pages and groups for his upcoming BlogPaws presentation. He had hoped to show off the Tripawds chapter groups during his talk, so he attempted to implement some minor changes that he would be discussing, for the betterment of the group. Specifically, he changed the group's cover photo to direct members attention to the Files tab, which it has been proven that many group members overlook. Assuming he was doing Caroline a favor by not asking her to make the change, he updated the cover photo and immediately commented on the photo with an explanation of what he was doing. He then noticed that the Resources doc was no longer at the top of the Files list and it included an outdated link to the Tripawds library.

Within minutes, the cover photo was changed back, and the entire Resources doc had been deleted. He messaged Caroline to explain his efforts, and was only told, "Rene has email."

In that email, Caroline expressed how she was "deeply upset" by the changes Jim made. What ensued was an email conversation the quickly degraded into her accusing us of undertaking "a rampage of torment" that caused her to be hospitalized. In the meantime, we discovered that our Admin privileges had been removed from the Tripawds UK group. Wondering what might happen next, and concerned about any unwarranted public backlash that might occur on the Tripawds UK Rescue Page, we demoted her Admin role on the page to Editor, allowing her to continue maintaining the page and using Facebook as the Page, but removing her ability to delete us as Admins until she indicated a willingness to work this situation out amicably.

This was apparently the last straw for Caroline. She continued to email us expressing her outrage, suggesting it would be better for her to disassociate from Tripawds. Thereaafter Jim then removed any mention of Tripawds branding from the page, removed the profile pic he had designed and renamed the page to Tripods UK Rescue.

After repeated pleas to her that were ignored, and her subsequent notifification that we had personally put her in the hospital with a stress induced stroke, we granted her full admin privileges to the Page, and removed ourselves from both the page and the Group. Despite our actions she felt it necessary to publicly accuse us "bullying and abuse" and called us "monsters" in a statement on the Tripods UK Rescue Page.

We have repeatedly apologized for any stress or personal harm we may have caused Caroline by our actions, and we are sorry to see our relationship on such a sour note. We do not post this topic to plead for support or ask anyone to take our side. We know that anyone who knows us—and our continuing efforts to maintain this website and any social media presence in the best interest of the Tripawds community—will see the truth. We only share these details here as a point of public record and to inform any Tripawds UK group members who may be interested in hearing our side of the story.

Thank you all for your understanding and continued support.