Caring for a Three Legged Dog or Cat

I just got a text from my husband.... apparently I was misinformed and it wasnt a 24 hour facilitt.... he died some time last night... alone in a cage.... I never got to say goodbye

Thank you to everyone who has been supportive through this and for all the thoughts and prayers. As much as my heart aches for losing one of my babies I’m trying to remind myself that he’s no longer in pain. Sitting here at my computer, I keep expecting to see him run up the stairs and around the corner and meow at me to get in my lap.

I would like to start by apologizing if this turns out to be a novel, and I wouldn’t blame anyone if it never gets read completely. I have never been a strong writer but I wanted to, and felt the need to, tell his story. Not only for me but for him. Also I am going to attempt to attach pictures throughout so I apologize if I do it wrong and none of them show up.

For us, Hiroaki’s story started in August 2011. While bowling for our league a friend posted a picture on facebook of a cute little kitty she found outside her house. He was so tiny and helpless, and she named him Tom Cat or Tom for short.

She was not able to take him in at the time and was looking for a home. After some begging I convinced Sebastian (my husband) to take in this kitten. He would be our second cat, his older sister is named Emmy and was adopted from the shelter in May 2010. After deciding he was ours we wanted to pick a new name. Both Sebastian and I are anime/japan fans so I googled Japanese names for boys and came across Hiroaki, which according to google means abundant light. Little did I know how true that name would fit him.

Hiroaki was always an odd little kitty. He would often jump in grocery bags or the laundry hamper then look at us and give us a cute little meow. He also loved to give us headbutts. Hiroaki is the only one of our 3 cats that ever did this, to me it made him Hiroaki. Hiroaki also made a habit of trying to be an escape artist whenever we would leave. We learned quickly that we would have to look for him before leaving.

The only trouble he ever gave us was when we realized it was time to neuter, he started to spray. I was always worried that going through the surgery would change his personality. Thankfully it never did. He was the same cute little furball. He always loved to lay with his daddy, he was a true daddy’s boy. He was also very fond of those little crinkly balls.

A little more than a year into his life with us, we saved our youngest kitty Keiko(blessed child), May 2012. Keiko was found with her litter mates being thrown into a local river by another friend. I had to have one. Sadly since Emmy and Hiroaki were already bonded, they were not fond of Keiko. Hiroaki did warm up to her though.

We have moved a lot in the 7 years, I’m sorry I believe in my original post I said 6, but Hiroaki always coped the best with the moves. On the car drive over he would lay in the back window of the car, I liked to avoid the carriers if I could. He would hide for an hour then be back to himself while the girls still hid, unless we brought out treats.

When we added our dog Luna to the family in January 2018, none of the cats were too happy. Luna loved them and wanted to play so bad but they did not like her. Emmy warmed up to Luna, when she is sleeping, but the other two learned to live with her. Unfortunately this also means I have no pictures of Luna and Hiroaki together.

Flash forward to the end of August 2018, Hiroaki started to limp around. He would completely avoid using his front left leg. I palpated the leg as much as he would let me and checked his joints and found no signs of a break. I’ll add in here that no I am not a vet but I am in school to be a tech. I don’t know much yet, but I know what to look for in injuries. Since I did not see evidence of a break or any open wounds I assumed that it was a sprain and restricted him to the bedroom so he could not jump up and down from high places.

Before I knew it a month had passed and he was still limping so I decided it needed looked into. I can’t help but wonder if he would still be here if I had gone sooner.

Since I never imagined it would be anything bad I continued with my pre-planned road trip to Memphis, from Dayton Ohio, and Sebastian would take him to the vet. This was on Monday September 24. I had made it 6 hours into the drive, only 2 hours left, when I got the news that it was Osteosarcoma in the toe and that they would need to amputate. Since I was in a different state I was not there to ask any questions so we still do not know if they ever did a full body scan that day or just the 2 legs that I was told of. The vet reassured Sebastian that after removing the leg he was 90% sure that Hiroaki would live at least another 5 years before passing of something else. Surgery was planned for Wednesday September 26 and my plans were to be home Thursday night. I ended up leaving early Wednesday morning.

The vet texted Sebastian with updates, when they started, during, and at the end that everything went perfect and he could pick him up at 6PM. When I arrived home at 10PM I could not contain myself. I never imagined I would have a baby with 3 legs. We expected that first night to be a little rough for all of us. After spending the night reading everything I could find I thought for sure he would recover and be fine. By around 3PM Thursday, he had not gotten up at all except to try and get comfortable again. He had not attempted to eat or drink anything, begin the intense worry. To google I went and this is when I came to the forums on Tripawds for advice.

In the morning on Friday when I was finally able to contact the vet they suggested removing his cone in hopes that he was protesting the cone. As soon as I did this he started moving around and even drank a bit of water. I was so convinced he was heading in the right direction. The vet did want to give him a few hours without the cone and if nothing by then we were to try Entyce.

2PM came and went with him still turning away from everything we offered. We easily spent over $100 on different foods and treats to try. Sebastian went to get the Entyce and we gave him the first dose. After about an hour maybe he started to gag, we are guessing from the medicine, but still never ate.

At this point he had not eaten anything since 9PM on Tuesday, to prep for surgery. I knew how dangerous this was so I insisted on Sebastian calling the vet as soon as they opened Saturday, rather than wait until 1PM like they suggested. Hiroaki went in for bloodwork to make sure everything was okay. Bloodwork came back good so they gave him fluid and meds with instructions to call if he wasn’t better by morning to plan on adding a feeding tube.

Sunday morning he had still not gotten any food, had even stopped drinking water, and was breathing heavy. I began to think he was trying to be close with us, laying as close as possible these last few days, to say goodbye. He knew he was dying. When the vet was called the decision was made to hospitalize for 1-3 days and attempt to find out why he was not eating, and get him to eat and heal.

First thing they did was a round of x-rays to find the source issue. They found a build up of fluid around his lungs and told Sebastian this was caused by stress from the surgery. After hooking him up on fluids and starting oxygen therapy they were able to get the fluid down, and find that his heart was beginning to fail. They explained it to Sebastian as his heart “was” failing and that he was rebounding. We were told he was already drinking on his own and to expect to pick him up Monday morning.

Monday October 1 at 745 AM I received one of the worst texts you could possibly get while at work, “I’m sorry baby, he died last night.” It was at this time I learned that he was in fact at the same facility and there was not anyone there to monitor him throughout the night.

We chose to have our baby cremated, as we still live in an apartment and would not be able to bury him at home. We will be able to get his ashes back today.

I have still not been able to talk to any of the vets but I believe that he did ultimately die of heart failure. I just wonder if this could have been prevented in any way, or if we would have taken him in before he went 4 days without food if he would still be here. I am trying not to think like this as it will only drive me mad with guilt but it’s where my mind keeps going back to.

For now I just need to focus on healing and reminding myself that he is at peace now and we did the best we could.

You will always be our little kitty who brought light into our lives Hiroaki. 

They did do bloodwork and urinalysis and everything came back  in normal range. The only thing they did not do is a chest xray. 

We just got back from getting our baby. We were also surprised with an additional gift.

Needless to say the few tears I had left fell as soon as I saw that print. 

I am 100% sure he was there with us and knew we were there for him. Just as we got out of the car it started to rain and stopped shortly after getting back in. 

My next plan from here is to find a way to make a proper name plate for the "box" he is in and get a little Hiroaki made. My sisters cat also passed in February this year of osteosarcoma, his was in the jaw, and she just told me about a website called shelter pups that makes wool stuffies made based off pictures and a description you provide. 

Once we have funds again the next plan to honor him is to get my tattoo, I have many. Knowing some day I would lose my babies I have each of their paw prints on paper so I can get a tattoo of their paw when they leave the earth. 

Again thank you to everyone's kind words. That alone has helped.