Thank you for letting me join the group! What a special bunch of people you all are and even special bunch of 3 legged kids!
My Franklin is a liver and white english springer spaniel. We rescued him from the SPCA on November 25, 2005. They said that he was 6 at the time, but I am not sure if they are right, and my vet has always thought he was younger than he is now. If he really was 6, he would be 13 obviously, but if he was only 4.. then he’d be 11 of course.
Franklin has bone cancer in this front left knee. The Terry Fox kind. He has a lump about the size of a clementine on the inner side and it is working itself around the back of his leg. 2 months ago we took him to the vet and had an xray done as the lump, although smaller at that time, was bothering me and I wanted to know if it was a fatty cycst.
The xray of course told us otherwise.. the vet suggested radiation, chemo or amputation that time time but I immediately thought no. I’m not going to put my pup through that at his age. Well.. 2 months have gone by.. and Franklin is still the freaking happiest dog in the world. his tail never stops wagging and although I know that day is coming, I dread it. He will be missed terribly by many people, especially my other Springer, Maggie, who is 10.
I took Franklin the Flatulent back to the vet this week to see if the lump can be removed, and of course it cannot. He suggested amputation again. We chatted more about it and Franklin is scheduled to go for a chest xray tomorrow to see if there are cysts, etc in his torso cavity., Of course, if there are, then amputation is out of the question because the cancer has gone through his body then.
But… if it’s clear, then I guess the question we ask our self is…. do we go ahead and amputate? I guess I am trying to justify that this is not for my own selfishness. He’s a pretty active guy still, eating, drinking, playing, and farting! lol He is not using the leg 100% due to the discomfort and usually stands on 3 legs anyhow. He is a tripawd in training! He did tear his ligament in his rear right knee about 4 years ago and has been on glycosamine since then (hence.. the flatulent nickname!!LOL) Gawd, such a hard deecision.
Has anyone else had a furbaby this age go through an amputation?
Of course, I will know more tomorrow after the xray.
Thanks for listening.. I am sure I will be here more often. Not only venting, but reading your incredible stores that have given me some hope and strength to get through this…
My dog Max was couple years younger when he had his amputation due to bone cancer (front left leg). You have to remember a couple of things (because I strugged with the decision also): If you do choose to amputate, you are taking away the pain the tumor is causing Franklin (only using three legs), and you are getting that tumor out of there (hopefully) before anything has a chance to spread. Franklin won’t care what he looks like with three legs; that’s our mental hangup. Look around on the forums, you will see there are plenty of older pups who went through amputation and did just fine; Zeus is one of them. He was 11 (I think) at the time of amputation, and already had a met on his lung. His folks went ahead with the amp and Zeus had many more quality months. Bone cancer is a nasty thing, and it causes a lot of pain for our pooches. If you have time, download the site’s e-book; that will help you with a lot of questions you may have for your vet. I wish you luck at your appt; be sure to take notes, and come back here or to the forums with questions. We’ve all been where you are now.
Welcome, we’re sorry to hear about Franklin but if he is otherwise healthy, fit and trim he should recover quickly and do just fine on three legs. You’ll find plenty of success stories in the Blogs and Forums from senior dogs, as old as 14!
Best wishes, please keep us posted!
Hey Franklin, we’re so glad you found us in the Forums, I hope you’ve gotten some good insight from all of the senior pups who have done great as Tripawds. Sounds like you’re a great candidate too!