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
Molly is an 11 year old Chihuahua/ Dachshund mix. She is the sweetest girl who might be slightly obsessed with me.
About 30 days ago I rushed Molly to the emergency vet. She was laying on my bed resting and I heard a loud pop, followed by the worst screaming and sounds I have ever heard.
Upon x-rays, they determined that her femur had snapped in half. I urged them to do the repair surgery, but once they got in there the bone was too porus and brittle to repair without risk of it breaking again. So I made the difficult decision to move forward with amputation. The biopsy came back as Fibrosarcoma but with clean margins and a good prognosis.
Recovery has been super stressful. On top of the break she presented with congested breathing and back pain. Lifting her to go outside caused her lots of pain and often made her scream out in pain.
We started some cold laser therapy and that has helped with the discomfort when moving and lifting her. However, she has little to no desire to try to move on her own. She also has no desire to eat. I have tried entyce and it doesn't seem to help.
Today we tried swimming and after a little prompting, she started swimming with her front legs. However the remaining hind leg just hung there like it doesn't work anymore. I doubt we have paralysis since her tail wags and when she has a high pain day, her toes curl.
I guess what I'm looking for is any advice on stimulating her appetite as well as her remaining hind leg.
Hi Jennifer and Molly, welcome! Your future posts won't need to wait for approval so post away.
I'm sorry for the post-op difficulties. Are you seeing a rehab therapist for her? If so, have you discussed her pain signals with them? Not eating, toe curling, all those things are signs that she is having some unaddressed pain. She could probably use some medication and gentle therapy like massage and passive range of motion with an expert. Before doing anything else like hydrotherapy it's critical to bring that pain under control first and medication is the fastest way to do that.
If you haven't seen a rehab therapist yet, please do as soon as possible. The Tripawds Foundation can even pay for her first rehab visit ! Let us know if you'd like help finding a practitioner.
Full spectrum CBD oil is what worked for us. My bulldog is 5 and was diagnosed with osteosarcoma in may. We've taken a completely holistic approach and the cbd oil has kept his appetite going! Once the oil boosts his appetite, make sure you've started him on a proper whole food diet with supplements! This will help keep his immune system functioning much better! We buy ours from hemp-connect.com but any full spectrum cbd oil works!
1 Guest(s)
