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Eternal optimists: Why dogs do well on three legs
By Gina Spadafori
September 15, 2009
When Christie was living in the redwoods north of her current home in San Francisco, she had six dogs living with her the isolated acreage, including the littermate of her recently departed Deerhound, Rebel.
Rebel’s sister Raven was a beauty, her dark wirey coat tipped with glitters of silver, he eyes large and expressive. She was a young dog when one day she came up on the porch limping, and soon, Christie knew it was no minor injury:
Raven had cancer.
In her SFGate.com column today, Christie writes about what happened next:
When my dog Raven was diagnosed with bone cancer, I had a surgeon cut off her leg.
It was a decision made for therapeutic reasons: Amputation completely and permanently eliminated the terrible pain caused by the tumor in her leg bone, pain so bad no drugs could control it.
I saw the procedure as a medical necessity, and so did Raven’s veterinarian, surgeon and oncologist. That’s how most people who have faced that same choice view it, and that’s how I see it today. But to a small, vocal number of people, there was nothing “medical” or “therapeutic” about amputating my dog’s leg. Those people used a very different word to describe it: mutilation.
Find out why here, and this time, be sure to read the comments. The decisions of many dog-lovers to amputate — and the wonderful lives their dogs were able to live as a result — are really worth checking out.
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I have a special love for the tripods, both dogs and cats, ever since my first foster kitten—an rear-leg amputee at four weeks of age. Now Lucy’s a permanent resident, along with Rocky, her “brother” kitty who was a front-leg amputee at the age of three weeks. What I love is that, unlike humans who lose a limb, never piss and moan about their “disabilities”, they just get up and go about their lives to the best of their ability. Now whenever the local shelter needs a foster for a newly-made tripod, I’m first in line. (And, no, I know I can’t keep them all); but once people see how well they do in my house with other animals, both dogs and cats, three-legged and four, one-eyed and two; the shelter actually has a list of people waiting to adopt a special-needs dog or cat.
Comment by Shellie — September 15, 2009 @ 7:13 pm
Hello Gina,
I read the article of Christie and it was truly amazing. I didn’t realize that yes, we know our dogs better than anyone else. We’re like parents to them and we just need to listen to our hearts whenever we should make any major decision for them. I was moved by how things went for Raven. True enough, there are really dogs out there that can survive with three legs and would not worry how the world would treat them. I am so thankful that I was able to read a wonderful article like this. Thanks for sharing it with us. :)
Comment by Chloe — September 15, 2009 @ 7:24 pm
Animals really are astonishingly resilient. They just get on with it.
I had a dog who had her hip joint destroyed and femur crushed as a young puppy. She was far to young for any reconstructive surgery (according to the specialists at UC Davis), but because she was still small and plastic her body remodeled the joint. She had limited range of motion, but no sign of pain, could run, jump, everything.
Had the leg not healed to a pain free, functional level, I would never have hesitated to amputate. I’ve seen dogs come into rescue debilitated by the pain of a mangled or nonfunctional limb come walking out of the hospital only days after amputation looking far happier than any pain control had been able to make them.
Comment by JenniferJ — September 15, 2009 @ 7:36 pm
Comment eaten by filter,
nomnomnom. XP
Comment by JenniferJ — September 15, 2009 @ 7:37 pm
It boils down to: Would the treatment be the same if it was a person? The answer is Yes. They amputate *people*’s legs all the time to contain aggressive bone cancers like that. Did their doctor mutilate them? Heck no.
People can be idiots.
Comment by Georg — September 15, 2009 @ 8:08 pm
When we faced this decision with Savanna, it really helped me that we had recently run an article in Dog Fancy about three-legged dogs. Pretty much unanimously people told us how well their dogs got around on three legs and how quickly they adjusted.
Comment by Kim Thornton — September 15, 2009 @ 9:41 pm
Thank you sooo much for the article. I am so very torn right now with the decision of amputating my dogs leg or loosing him. I know I’ll make the right decision now.
Comment by Holly DeLain — September 21, 2011 @ 1:47 pm