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
Hi everyone,
It's been 2 weeks now since my beloved St. Bernard Reba was diagnosed with Osteosarcoma and 1 week since her front leg amputation surgery. I have done a lot of reading on tripawds.com to learn as much as I can about helping Reba through this big transition from 4 legs to 3. Reba is 10, has been on a homemade grain free diet with various supplements for years. I have been researching holistic approaches to preventing lung Mets and came across the website and path with paws. I ordered Sanshedan ChuanBeiYe and Artemisinin to start Reba on. My question is that while there is a protocol for Artemisinin (11 days on, 3 days off) I don't know the protocol for Sanshedan ChuanBeiYe? Is it just 2 vials a day forever? Reba weighs 105 lbs.
Have any of you had any experience with this particular herb?
Reba is recovering slowly from her surgery and seems to have good days where she gets up and is able to walk a bit then the next day she doesn't want to move herself at all and I carry her every time she needs to go out. Is this normal? We are 1 week post-op, she has been eating and drinking and pottying like normal. She is getting 150 MG Tramadol for pain 3x daily.
Sorry this was so long, I just have a lot of questions and want to make sure there isn't something else I can be doing to help Reba.
Thank you
Hi Reba & family, welcome. We are so glad you found us, even though it's the club nopawdy wants to join. Sounds like Reba is geting around pretty well considering it's only been a week. To me that sounds very typical, and for giant breeds you need to give them a little more time to get their sea legs. She's eating and pottying? That's GREAT!
I've never heard of that herb, and am not sure if anyone else here has. I would definitely talk to Dr. McCullough from Path with Paws, and get with a holistic vet to help guide you with any natural therapies you want to take. Just to be safe, so that the medications and herbs don't conflict with one another. Here's a directory of holistic vets to get you started finding one if you don't have one already.
the American Holistic Veterinary Medical Association website directory.
Some of us are in the Tripawds Chat room right now. I see you're there but not saying anything, hope you chime in!
Oh and if you want some inspawration, be sure to check out Patchy's blog, you'll love it!
Tripawds Founders Jim and Rene
tripawds.com | tripawds.org | bemoredog.net | triday.pet
Hello and welcome.
I haven't heard of that herb either so I'm no help there. When I was dealing with cancer in my quad-pug Tani I worked with a holistic vet in concert with our regular vet to make sure that her diet and medications didn't conflict with the supplements and herbs she was taking. I do think at least a consult with holistic vet is worthwhile. If there is not one near you I know some people who have had great success working with Dr. Loops- he does much of his work by phone consult.
On the days that Reba feels like walking how active is she? She should only be doing very short trips for leashed potty breaks. It takes a lot of effort for new tripawds to get around and the giant breeds do tend to take a little longer to be consistently comfortable.
Overall with the eating and eliminating and some walking she sounds like she is doing great for one week post amp!
Karen and the Spirit Pug Girls
Tri-pug Maggie survived a 4.5 year mast cell cancer battle only to be lost to oral melanoma.
1999 to 2010
Hi,
We used San shedan chuanbei ye, and artemisinin . Did it help? Who knows.
Milo had a very rare form osteosarcoma. His mitotic index was 40+. That means 40+% of his tumor cells were replicating at a given time. Typical numbers are less than 5%. His cancer was growing 10x faster than most tumors! His cancer cells were doubling every 2 days! As his oncologist said, he had a tough road ahead.
After learning about his mitotic index we figured we had only 1 month. We got 10 weeks. Nowhere near enough time, but maybe more than without. It's hard to say. How do we know? At 8.5 weeks we had the very first hint of rough breathing one night. Or was it the heat? At 9 weeks post amputation, we did out first lung x-ray and he had "100s of tiny metastases". One week later we said our goodbyes. It was that aggressive.
So.... with hindsight, I would do it again. I think it helped. But this is only based on a feeling and not proven.
Cost wise, we ordered from Modern Herbs at $4.99 per 6 bottles, and after your first order you get emails with discount offers of 15-20%. So after the first coupon it was ~$40/month.
Hope this helps.
Peace,
Jenifer & Milo
Lpve Reba's avatar! Can't wait to see more photos of that sweet mug!
You've already gotten great input. Yes, one week is still very early in recovery, especially for big pups. Slow and easy for now.
Is Reba on Rimadyl as well as the Tramadol? How much does she weigh? IF she's not showing any obvious signs from tne surgery lain, you coukd ask your Vet about maybe trying the Tramadol either two times a day, or reducing the amount a vit vut still doing it three times a day.
It does sound like ner muscles are pretty stiff and sore. Adjusting to being a tripawd can cause a lot of tenderness up and down the spine, the neck, the shoulders, etc. Try gentle massage all over and gentle stretching for a few minutes before she has to get up to potty.
Jennifer, thanks for your valuable input! Milo will ALWAYS have a positive impact on anyone sstarting this journey.
Let us know how Reba is doing.
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!
1 Guest(s)
