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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How encouraging to find this site. Just reading through the posts and viewing the videos on the front page have ensured us that we have made the right decision - especially after the tears, hugs and nightmares. Carter, our big 'ole heinz 57 mix of a luvable hunk of a dog was diagnosed last Monday with osteosarcoma and we confirmed the diagnosis with a second opinion this past Friday. We are fortunate that the cancer has not yet spread (verified with the xrays of the lungs, etc) and is only in a tumor on the back right leg. We have made the decision to move forward with the amputation to be done in two days. As I am reading through the forums I am seeing posts about separating the patient from any other dogs in the house. Our big guy (95 pounder) is never without his 18 lb Jack Russell Terrier brother Linus by his side. They both do suffer from separation anxiety when parted. Do we need to keep them separate during recovery? Do we need to be concerned about any aggressive behaviors of the well dog while our patient recovers? We are fortunate that one of us can be at home during the recovery but do need advice about what to do when we need to leave the two of them alone. Any advice or experiences would be helpful.
Keeping the faith and looking forward to wonders of three-legged living,
Greg and Ben (carter's dads)
Greg,
I have multiple dogs and what I did for Calamity was set up a crate in the living room & keep the door open so Calamity could go in when needed yet be with her pack. For the most part she chose to be in the crate for the first 2 weeks. At night, we babygated her in the "dog room" so no one could hurt her during the night until her staples were taken out. If you do not have a crate, an x-pen would be nice.
I have a true "pack" of 5 greyhounds here and not once did I experience any pack behavior (agression) during any of her illness and recovery. If anything, the pack respected that she was weak and left her alone. Her brother (littermate) was the only one who seemed to miss her when she was gone & gave her the once over when she returned.
When you bring Carter home, I would just watch him & Linus to see how it unfolds, my guess is it will be just fine.
We did not leave the dogs alone until Calamity was about a week post amp and we just babygated her in the dog room. We were only gone for a short time though.
Janie & Calamity
Janie & Calamity http://www.trix.....gspot.com/
Greg, Ben and Carter,
I have two Great Danes who are inseparable. I was very worried that the other one would get overly curious about Nova's incision, or rough with her. I did not have any problems at all. What was really amazing is that Emmy (the 4-legged one) almost instantly knew something was wrong with Nova (Tripawd), and "knew" that she should be treated with care. For the first week or so she just was a little stand-offish, and they did not snuggle up as usual. She could tell Nova wasn't feeling herself, and gave her space. Now they are back to snuggling, but Emmy is cutting Nova a lot of slack in many ways. She lets her eat first and is patient with her when she plays with her toys, even if she just stole a toy or bone! And she no longer roughhouses with her.
Watch them for the first few days, but I think you will be surprised how much dogs "know".
Check out our blog at http://www.trip.....ogspot.com for detailed info about Nova's recovery, she had her amputation 11/11/08.
Sue and Nova
Dane Mom Sue at nova.tripawds.com and Mom to Beautiful Great Dane Queen Nova, a Blind Tripawd, who kicked cancer's butt from 11/08-03/13. The Queen is Spirit Nova now, but her legacy lives on here at Tripawds!
We have a large pack (was 11 at the time of Darcys surgery, then down to 9 and now at 10). We sectioned off an area of the living room for Darcy so that everyone could see her and she could see everyone, but nobody could irritate her or accidetally step on her in those early days after surgery.
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Nobody ever tried to 'break in' to Darcys bed space but they could lay beside it if they wanted to. After about 7 days or so, we removed the front panel so that some of the others could go in there with her if they wanted to but they tended not to. We would sit in there with her and encourage some of the others (one at a time) to come and lay near her.
None of our dogs ever acted aggressively towards Darcy during her recovery and they also seemed to sense that she needed space.
Darcy – tripawd since 16th October 2007.
***Darcy would love to be your friend on Facebook - just search for Darcy Deerhound***
I think it all depends on the temperment of your other dog. If you other dog is excitable then I would use caution and watch him very closely to make sure he does not jump up on Carter. Pay attention to Linus's behavior. If he acts aggressively then separate them. Since they do suffer from separation anxiety, they may just feel better if they are together.
We have four dogs total. Besides our tripawd Doberman, Leo, we have a female pitbull/boxer mix and male and female sibling German Shepards. They are usually mellow unless we have just walked in the door and then it is a three ring circus. We did not separate our other dogs from Leo when he came home after surgery. Initially, the girls were a little wary of him because he was walking different and he smelled very strongly of the vet. They were fine after a few minutes. The other male did not seem to notice anything was different. They were careful of him, like they understood. They showed no aggression and Leo resumed his position as alpha male. I was home with them for 5 days but when I had to go back to work, I separated them for about 2 weeks just in case because they can get rowdy when they are playing.
I wish Carter well with his surgery and recovery.
Sheri and Leo (and Princess and Lucy and Gorbie)
Just an FYI that surgery today went well and we were able to visit tonite (for a full update it is posted under Our Carter boy in the "our stories' section). Linus has been a bit anxious without carter here at the house but we took a new toy to the visiting hours with us and smelled it up with carter smell and then brought it home to Linus. Dont know if it will help much but seemed like a good idea. Linus spent a lot of time sniffing our pants and such getting some carter into his system. We will be gating Carter into the dining room and letting linus in for visits based on the suggestions of you all out there. Thanks for the advice. We will let you know how it goes upon homecoming.
Cartersdads,
That is SO great to hear everything went well. Congratulations!
Never fear, Carter can handle more than you think. Let us know how things go. We are rooting for you all.
Tripawds Founders Jim and Rene
tripawds.com | tripawds.org | bemoredog.net | triday.pet
I hope everything is going well for you.
Tika's sis is a German Shepherd and they are very close. We also made a pen in the living room so Tika could be with us and Caya could be near. As we expanded Tika's domain, we would use baby gates and the pen to keep the girls apart while we were away. By the time the sutures/staples came out, they had free reign with each other.
The vet wanted us to be sure to keep an eye out because the 'strangeness' (smells of surgery, etc) can make the sibling dog act out a bit. We had no problems though, Caya was just more bemused than anything.
We only had one incident during recovery, Caya swung around and hip-checked Tika at her surgical site, it's the only time I ever hear Tika cry out and it was a doozie. Well, I'm here to tell you that she took it a lot better than I did. So how you respond is very important also.
We got to remember that these darn doggies are a lot smarter than us, they don't overthink the situation.
Right now they are both on the couch watching Cesar, The Dog Whisperer. Methinks somebody in this house is missing the point! hmmmmm.
Good luck!
--Kim and Tika (and Caya)
Kim and Spirit Tika http://www.tika.....ogspot.com
Hi Carter's Dads! Welcome! 
How is Carter doing? How has everyone been getting along? I monitored Jake when he came home after surgery to see how he would be with Smooch (13 year old mix) and Otis (my boyfriend's big 100 lb Chesapeake Bay Retriever) and they were curious but not obnoxious to Jake. Smooch would sit by Jake and look after him and Otis (only 4 years old) just kind of circled Jake and sniffed his face a lot. My boyfriend was a little nervous about having everyone together and I told him that we are a family and it could only help with Jake's healing to have his pack around him now. I think they look to you (their pack leader) to set the tone and if things are cool with you, then they take on that energy. Please give us an update when you get a chance!
Luv Spirit Jake, Smooch, Baby Gus & Mom (Sherri)
Greetings all on post surgery day 4. Wow - it has been quite a ride. I will post a full detail on the “our Carter Boy” forum under stories but did want to report on the boys progress. As of now - all is well. The first day back Linus was a bit hesitant and spent a lot of time sniffing Carter out - surely picking up the hospital and medicine smells. He would sniff a while - lay a short distance away - get up and sniff some more…and this continued for a bit. Linus did try to display dominance a couple of time by humping on carter but carter put him in his place and that was that. From then on they have been back to their regular routine of grooming each other and sleeping closely together. I must say managing Linus while caring for Carter has been a bit of a juggling act when we both are not at home. it is impossible to manage them both at the same time. I am going to try and attach a picture here i took from my Blackberry of the two of them side by side (and yes, that is the Christmas tree still set up - with all that has been going on we just havent had the time…smile…and Carter likes to stare at the lights).
cartersdads said:
...carter put him in his place and that was that.
Isn't that the greatest? You go Carter! Show him whose boss, so he'll let you take it easy for a while. Then you can really show him!
Thanks for the update, here's to more happy healing!
Tripawds Founders Jim and Rene
tripawds.com | tripawds.org | bemoredog.net | triday.pet
I am so glad all went well!
We had a rough two weeks and then Ember's recovery was remarkable. We did have some trouble with other pets as Ember was quite snappy. Her best frend cat buddy, Mango, jumped up onto the couch with her on about day 4 and she just about bit him in half. He was quick though and escaped harm. More serious though, at about one month after the surgery, Ember bit my two year nephew. He DID hit her with a toy after we had warned him to leave the sick doggy alone, but even so you can't be too careful. Our other dog, a Sheltie, was fine with Ember and she was fine with him. I gave him extra attention away from Ember.
Jane
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