Caring for a Three Legged Dog or Cat
Tripawds is your home to learn how to care for a three legged dog or cat, with answers about dog leg amputation, and cat amputation recovery from many years of member experiences.
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Glad to hear Titan is doing well. We are 7 days post amputation with our dog Murphy. He's had a pretty good recovery so far. He had a bit of a pain crisis post op 2 once the anesthetic was thouroughly out of his system but is managing with Tramadol and gabapentin for pain. Truly his biggest complaint seems to be the cone of shame but he begrudgingly wears it when he can't be watched.
I found this sight so supportive! Great knowledgable people! Goof luck with Titan and keep us posted
Val
Thank you for all the kind messages of support. It has been a busy week with lots of highs and lows. Someone mentioned the first few days being pretty good because the meds from the hospital were still in his system...how right you were! Day 4,5 and 6 were difficult. Our happy overly attictive dog was a zombie and then the phantom pain started 😢
Titan is a very tough dog, in his 11 years he has never yelped. But Day 5 at 6am he yelped and woke us up. He then starting contorting his body asif trying to lift his amputated leg as high as possible. It was heart breaking, he had 5 more of those episodes that day until we were able to pick up the Gabapentin. It took a couple days for the gaba to kick in. You were right it is a miracle drug! No more phantom pain or contorting since.
Today is day 10 and our boy is far from being himself. I often have to coax him out of bed to go pee and his favorite spot on our bed is always empty cause he would rather sleep alone. It was really encouraging to read that in time he will start to be himself again. I am looking forward to seeing him happy.
I don’t know about you guys and your fur babies, but Titan has become such a spoiled and picky eater. He has us wrapped around his paw! He will only eat warm food (he thinks anything cold has pills in it. He won’t take food from my husband. I actually have to cook him meals for him to eat well (sausages with rice and chicken breast with spinach are his new must haves)....insert eye roll here.
Anyway, it has been a journey and I doubt it’s far from over but having such an amazing community of support and knowledge has been invaluable. Thank you to everyone. Wishing you a good night of snuggling your furry ones
<3 Christine
Hi sweetie 🌺
So glad you are keeping such a good eye on him, you are the best Mom to your boy!
I just wanted to assure you it WILL get better and Titan is going to do everything he did before in due course.
You're almost through the worse part of recovery, stay strong and you'll get there.
Sending you lots and lots of hugs and cuddles 😘🐮💫✨🌟🌹
Eurydice 77kg/170lb Great Dane limping end of April 2016, amputation (right front leg/osteosarcoma) 4 May 2016 6 courses of carboplatin followed by metronomic therapy, lung mets found 30 Nov 2016. 3 courses of doxorubicin, PET scan 26 Jan 2017 showed more mets so stopped chemo. Holistic route April 2017. Lung X-ray 5 May 2017 showed several tennis ball size mets, started cortisone and diuretics. Miss Cow earned her XXL silver wings 12 June 2017, 13 months and 1 week after amputation and 6 1/2 months after lung mets, she was the goofiest dawg ever and is now happily flying from cloud to cloud woof woofing away :-)
You've got this!!!! You have a great understanding of what's going on with Titan and how to work with him based on where he is on this journey so far.
Good job of advocating gor tht Gaba. So glad it worked!
Titan will start taking back his place in the bed. Right now he's doing like animals do in rhe wild...kinda' hanging out away from the pack so he can heal.
And we sure do get how impossible it is NOT to spoil a tripawd!! Impossible!! They deserve it though😎
As Teresa said, the hardest part of recovery should start getting further and further away. Although, I must admit, it took me about three weeks before I could finally say I did this FOR mh Happy Hannah and not TO her!!
Keep is updated! And we would love pictures!!!!!
Hugs
Sally and Alumni Happy Hannah and Merry Myrtle and Frankie 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!
Aww you guys will get there. It just takes some time. At least now that you have the phantom pain under control, and get the gabapentin dosage dialed in, he should be doing better.
Regarding the food thing: yeah, pills can be tough. And that's perfectly OK to try to boost his appetite with home cooked food. Pain medications can really dull appetite so you may be doing it for a while but at least he's enjoying your cooking! Tip: Try not to mix pills up with his regular food or he definitely won't eat. This blog post may help you figure out a way to get around that:
How to Hide Pet Medication (and Get Your Tripawd Eating)
It's hard not to spoil a Tripawd but there's a fine line between being a loving caregiver, and spoiling them too much. A little tough love (i.e., weaning off of hand-feeding especially) goes a long way to help a new Tripawd gain the confidence they need to tackle the world. You and Titan are getting there!
Tripawds Founders Jim and Rene
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