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.
Join The Tripawds Community
Learn how to help three legged dogs and cats in the forums below. Browse and search as a guest or register for free and get full member benefits:
Instant post approval.
Private messages to members.
Subscribe to favorite topics.
Live Chat and much more!
Register
Log In
Members
Add Topic
Offline
Here is a link to a video of her from this morning. I don't know how to embed it into the post so for now I will just do it like this:
From now on when I take her out, I am going to put her on a leash. When I first let her outside, she heard some birds and walked slowly over to the sound of them, gradually gaining speed and then got that "pointing" look like she was about to go chase them! I had to grab her so she wouldn't take off across the yard! She is amazing, I am so proud of her little fluffy butt!
Ruby is my (almost) 8 year old Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever. She had her left forelimb amputated due to cancer on July 28, 2016 and we are on the road to recovery!
She is doing great! A leash is a good idea. You might get a bit of a crash when the hospital meds wear off (in 3 -5 days), and you don't want her overdoing it now.
Otis - 106 pound lab/Dane mix, lost his right front leg to osteosarcoma on Febuary 9, 2016. Four rounds of carboplatin completed in April, 2016. Lung mets August 25, 2016. Said goodbye too soon on September 4, 2016. Lost his adopted sister, Tess, suddenly on October 9, 2016. likely due to hemangiosarcoma.
Wherever they are, they are together.
Good girl indeed!!! And a very pretty girl too!! 🙂 🙂 Extra treats for sweet Ruby!!
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!
She's looking great! You'll notice that when they walk slowly, they seem stiff like that, but when they walk quickly, they move more smoothly. So as she's feeling better, she'll start walking faster 
Donna
Donna, Glenn & Murphy
Murphy had his right front leg amputated due to histiocytic sarcoma at 7 years old. He survived 4 years, 2 months & 1 week, only to be taken by hemangiosarcoma at 11 1/2 years 6/12/17
Read about Murphy's Life on Three Legs
Oh, she is sooo cute and already so confident on 3 legs 
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 :-)
Oh wow, Novak had his amputation on the 28th as well! Triplet!!! LOL She look good! Glad that everything seem to go well for the return at home. Good luck! I will follow her progress.
She's looking fantastic! Ruby sure is a beauty! I too think a leash is a good idea these early days. How they can maneuver so well early on like this and all looped up on drugs never ceases to amaze me. Hugs,
Linda, Riley & Spirits Mighty Max & Ollie
rubysmom said
I don't know how to embed it into the post so for now I will just do it like this...
Youtube and Vimeo videos will automatically embed in forum and blog posts by pasting the link.
Lookin' good!
Tripawds Founders Jim and Rene
tripawds.com | tripawds.org | bemoredog.net | triday.pet
Okay so it's midday on Day 4 post-amp. Last night was a bit rough, Ruby was clearly uncomfortable due to either pain or a reaction to her meds. I've read that around day 3 they tend to start a "crash"...she is excessively panting, drinking a lot of water, constantly up and down trying to find a place to lay and can never get comfy. She will be settled and relaxed and then all of the sudden cry out in pain. This makes me think she might be experiencing some phantom pain . She had diarrhea early this morning. Im going to start a journal to keep Track of her pain vs meds ect. She has seemed better today now that we have her meds regulated better but as of this evening she's started to cry again, which makes me worry. I called the vet and she said to lay off the trazadone because sometimes when it's mixed with tramadol it can make the dogs have disphoria kind of like they're drunk. So we have only given her her normal dosages today of rimadyl, tramadol, and gabapentin. And then a quarter dose of trazadone earlier this morning before speaking with the vet when Ruby seemed to not be able to relax. Will keep you posted. Thanks for the support as always!
Ruby is my (almost) 8 year old Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever. She had her left forelimb amputated due to cancer on July 28, 2016 and we are on the road to recovery!
My Happy Hannah was VERY restless and whining for avout the dirst five nights! I don't think she, nor I, slept more than severl hours those dirst few days
You're doing a great job! Hang in there! It is MAJOR surgery. emember, a human woukd probably still be in the hospital with a morphine drip!
I don't remember the frequency of the pain med doses, but you can talk to your vet about adding another dose into the schedule if you think that will help. Yeah, glad shes off the anxiety pill. They can really mess with her brain!
Stay connected- we're here with you all the way
Try and get some rest-'Try!
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!
We ended up with the Tramadol every eight hours until the staples came out. Otis got 3 pills, so I staggered 2 pills and then an hour later 1. This prevented a crash that I was seeing at the eight hours as the dose wore off. By the way, many dogs show remarkable improvement when the staples come out about day 10, so hang in there! Days 5 and 6 were probably the hardest for us.
Otis - 106 pound lab/Dane mix, lost his right front leg to osteosarcoma on Febuary 9, 2016. Four rounds of carboplatin completed in April, 2016. Lung mets August 25, 2016. Said goodbye too soon on September 4, 2016. Lost his adopted sister, Tess, suddenly on October 9, 2016. likely due to hemangiosarcoma.
Wherever they are, they are together.
Things are going better without Trazadone. Hopefully, Ruby finds the same. Right now our crash seems to be from muscle soreness and exhaustion. 3 legs is tiring. Milo hardly stirred all night which of course had me worrying for different reasons, and he's still just lying around like a sad sack.
Hang in there. Ruby, Novak, and Milo will be ready for walks in a month. And we will be, too!
Milo is a very smart boy knowing that he just needs lots of rest right now! I love that he did a PSA for your boys about not doing drugs!!
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!
Day 6: Ruby has been having a bad bad time of it with the diarrhea especially through the night of Night 5 (she went out 4 times in the night and had liquid explosive D) she's also been walking with her tail tucked the last two days and muscles are very tight. We have been massaging her constantly and trying to keep her cleaned up. poor poor baby.
We were worried this morning (day 6) that she needed to be seen to solve the potty problem and we called the surgeon/oncologist and they sent us to our family vet, who then turned us around and sent us to the surgeon/ oncologist...(all of this isn't fun....It's less fun when you're having to lift a 53lb helpless dog in and out of the car without touching a big ass scar!) anyways, we get to the oncologist (who I adore!) and they are just amazing. They squeeze us in right away and come up with a plan to try and curb the diarrhea (quitting the rimadyl and tramadol and they put on fentanyl (sp?) patches) she's been very sedated and calm since we got her home which is good. They also shaved away her butt fur and cleaned her up while she was at the vet since she had soiled herself and was starting to get stinky...now we have to use baby wipes and diaper cream on her when she goes (I'm SO thankful to have my mom here for this part omg).
She's on a bland diet now, chicken and rice. She's eating and drinking which is good, let's just keep our fingers crossed this new med plan plus the added diarrhea meds they put us on yesterday will do the trick and she will start feeling better soon. I start grad school on Monday and will be out of the house 7-5 every day, so I'm going to hire someone to come take care of her once my mom leaves.
im starting to get nervous about the results, he vet said she thinks they will end up needing to stain then or something? I don't know all i understood is that they aren't back yet lol! We got out of the house today for a bit once Ruby was calm enough to leave alone. It was wonderful, maybe I'll start feeling like myself again soon...especially if Ruby starts feeling better. Next appointment is on Monday, mom will take her as I will be back at my first day of school (yikes!)
fingers crossed for a sleep-filled poop-free night (well, morning? It's already 3am...whew)
bring it on day 7!
Paws,
kacy &rubydoobiedoo
Ruby is my (almost) 8 year old Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever. She had her left forelimb amputated due to cancer on July 28, 2016 and we are on the road to recovery!
Just a quick question. Have any of your vets done a stool sample to rule out a bacterial infection? Just a thought it might be a bacteria causing it instead of a reaction to drugs. Just throwing it out there and maybe thats already been done. Fingers and paws crossed here that precious Ruby will be feeling much better soon and you will have smoother sailing on this journey.
Hugs,
Linda, Riley & Spirits Mighty Max & Ollie
1 Guest(s)
