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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You all are the best. Although now I feel guilty for laying out all my guilt here! Just kidding. Sort of. 🙂
Mosby's tummy is definitely better (and his appetite thankfully has not been an issue since day 1), and we switched to the new antibiotic, so hopefully things stay this way. With respect to how he feels after chemo, he has no GI issues at all (these issues were caused by an antibiotic) ... it just knocks him down like the flu. You all are right, I will be sure to fully inform my oncologist. I'm doing my best to be a good advocate. Even if it sometimes makes me hypersensitive to every little thing.
All suggestions welcome on how to get the pills down him. His issue is that he chews everything. :/ So even if I give him something super tasty, that you'd think he'd just swallow, he chews it. The marshmallows worked for a while because even though he could chew them, he couldn't chew down that far because they were so sticky. Not anymore! So if anyone has any ideas for something that I could hide the pills in that he won't chew through, I'm all ears!
Here's a bit of humor from when I picked up his Rx tonight at Kroger. I adopted Mosby from a shelter, so we have no idea exactly how old he is or what his date of birth might be. We celebrate February 2nd, since that's the day I brought him home. 😉
Me: Prescription for Mosby [lastname].
Pharmacy clerk: Date of birth?
Me: Hard to say!
Luka chews almost everything, too. His first vet (when he was diagnosed with an ACL tear) suggested that canned "cheese" stuff: Easy Cheese. It's so easy!
Anyway, the gabapentin is no problem because it is slippery anyway, but he actually takes the tramadol buried in Easy Cheese, and that had been a challenge.
Lisa
Hi Lisa - Luka is so cute! How do you do the Easy Cheese? Do you make a blob of it and then stick the pill in the blob and give it to him? My mom used to bribe one of our old dogs into the bathtub with Easy Cheese!
I think you have to go jello shots. Nothing to chew, just slides right down! 
janeothejungle said
I think you have to go jello shots. Nothing to chew, just slides right down!
Haha! Yes! Mosby's going to be feeling really good soon.
Mosby clearly "born", really born, the day he picked you to show him what love and joy felt like! And now he knows
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 hide pills in glob of peanut butter. It's gotten so that when I unscrew the lid, both dogs are coming to check it out. 🙂
Ok, I'm going to try both Easy Cheese and peanut butter! Pieces of hot dog worked this morning, but I feel like I'd go through a lot of hot dogs!
I remember someone saying that their dog got something like three hotdogs for every pill - the dog was just too good at finding the pills!
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.
We relied on Jif Natural Peanut Butter with Honey. Occasionally turkey hot dogs or cream cheese for variety, but this PB was the best - no stir, right consistency to form a nice sort of lump around the pills. And I tried many natural peanut butters. This does have sugar in it, but no xylitol. He was okay with an even more natural PB with no sugar, but they were often so oily and viscous - so, so messy.
Lisa, Minneapolis
On October 27, 2016, nearly 6 months after amputation, and 18 months since his cancer likely started, we lost Pofi to a recurrence of Soft Tissue Sarcoma in his spine quite suddenly. His canine sister also succumbed to cancer on March 1, 2019 - we lavished her with our love in the interim, but life was never quite the same without her only real canine friend. Cliff kitty had to leave us, too, suddenly, in August 2019. Lucia kitty grieved all these losses, but helped us welcome two new Lurchers into our home and our lives, Shae and Barley.
Yes, just a blob of Easy Cheese with a non-pill chaser blob to anticipate (so less focusing on the chewing)!
Good luck!
Lisa
I've had good luck with 'melty cheese'. You take a small piece of cheddar cheese, just big enough to cover the pill, and some extra pieces and microwave them for a few seconds. Just enough time to get them to melt and release some oil. Cover the pill with the cheese- again just enough to cover the pill, and ball up the other pieces. The cheese makes kind of a hard coating and with the released oil it is pretty slippery.
I always have three ready to go- a fake one first, then the pill, then another fake. I find that when Elly sees more than one treat in my hands she swallows the first one pretty fast to make sure she gets the next one. It also helps if you have more than one pet- when I give a 'fake' to Obie then Elly is really interested in swallowing whatever I give her.
If you are trying to get tramadol down then you shouldn't touch the pills at all- the taste will transfer from your fingers to the cheese covering (or whatever you use to cover the pill). I use tweezers to place the pill in the cheese and be sure its covered in cheese before you pick the cheese ball.
Good luck!
Karen
Tri-pug Maggie survived a 4.5 year mast cell cancer battle only to be lost to oral melanoma.
1999 to 2010
You all were so ahead of me on the "chaser" treat. I've finally figured that out - if you have something tasty ready to go, they swallow the pill fast. Anyway, the peanut butter is working! And I'll get some easy cheese this weekend so we can change it up.
Bad news is that Mosby had a good day that went downhill fast. Lots of discomfort, whining and panting (which is not a usual symptom for him). We ended up taking him to the ER because I was so concerned and wanted to make sure it wasn't something bad. Vitals, etc., were fine, and the only thing that turned up was that he's highly reactive in his back. So we think that he's just having a ton of back pain due to the stress of losing the hind limb. We've upped his pain meds again and he also got something else to settle his tummy just in case that was still bothering him. He had PT today, and it might have triggered this, which is unfortunate because the point of the PT is to strengthen him so this doesn't happen.
Just wondering - has anyone ever had a vet prescribe methocarbomol for a tripawd with muscle pain caused by the stress of adapting to three legs? We were not prescribed it, but in my experience (with horses and humans) it's a pretty normal thing for muscle spasms and highly reactive muscle pain / tightness. Mosby is on meloxicam, which is an NSAID, and then the gabapentin and tramadol. However, the second two aren't anti-inflammatory, just pain killers. Which is fine, I definitely want him to be as pain free as much as possible, but they also seem like they aren't very therapeutic, whereas the NSAID and something like methocarbomol might be. Anyway, I'm going to bring this up with my vet tomorrow (I ask soooo many questions and yet always forget something), but was interested to see if anyone has had their dog on methocarbomol for this kind of thing.
Awww Mosby, sorry you're having to deal with such an awful owweee!
Not familiar with the Metho., just the Meloxicam or Rimadyl..
Yeah, it sounds like the PT may have triggered this. It's sooo easy this early on for a tripawd to tweak his back, neck and shoulder muscles,'or even disc issues. I'm sure the Vet said to keep him fairly restricted for a few days and to not do PT for a bit. What kind of PT did Mosby do today?
Did the Vet recommend massaging or warm/cold compresses?
Hang in there!! I know it seems like this recovery phase, and all the ups and downs therein, last forever. It doesn't! Hang in there! You're doing great...even if it doesn't feel like it!!
Lots of 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!
Forgive me if I have talked about modalities before, but here I go again! 
On the med variety - while the NSAID is helping fight pain by addressing inflammation, you are correct that the others are mostly for pain. The Gabapentin acts in the nerves and there is a significant range on safe dosage - you may be able to increase the Gabapentin very safely and might find it seems to reduce the pain symptoms of restlessness and whining and panting. This was THE most impactful med for Pofi's STS nerve sheath tumor pain management . Tramadol works to block pain receptors in the brain and might also produce serotonin, but is a narcotic, so range of safe dosage is narrower. Methocarbamol - muscle relaxant and Pofi was also taking this with the other three (Rimadyl versus Meloxicam, but an NSAID) for a few weeks and it was to address a groin pull.
I know the removal surgery for the suspected STS is probably still a few weeks out, correct? While you said it was fairly certain the lump was STS, you had not said if they had specified likelihood of STS in muscle or nerve sheath tumor or other. If it is possible this is a nerve sheath tumor then I think the PT could also have had a triggering effect to make it sort of "jangle" the network of nerves near the tumor. PT did seem to exacerbate Pofi's pain symptoms before we realized he had a nerve sheath tumor (it was the cause of his lameness, but went un-diagnosed for a long time).
Has Mosby had an MRI or is one scheduled prior to the surgery for removal?
Also, what is dosage and frequency for Gabapentin right now and Mosby's weight?
Lisa, Minneapolis
On October 27, 2016, nearly 6 months after amputation, and 18 months since his cancer likely started, we lost Pofi to a recurrence of Soft Tissue Sarcoma in his spine quite suddenly. His canine sister also succumbed to cancer on March 1, 2019 - we lavished her with our love in the interim, but life was never quite the same without her only real canine friend. Cliff kitty had to leave us, too, suddenly, in August 2019. Lucia kitty grieved all these losses, but helped us welcome two new Lurchers into our home and our lives, Shae and Barley.
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