Diabetic Cats and Three-Legged Dogs.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

::::sigh::::
Here’s my story.

My mom was driving back from work two days ago when she spots a puppy walking around, obviously hurt and emaciated, on the side of the road. So she scoops him up, being the animal lover she is, and takes him to an all night animal clinic.
To make a long story short, this puppy who is less than a year old was hit by a car over a week ago, which gave him a compound fracture to both bones in his right front arm. So, with his paw just dangling there, he chewed it off. That’s when my mom found him, hobbling along on three legs and very very skinny. His leg had become infected and was swelled and warm to the touch. The vets fixed him up, sewed his leg up and gave him some medication, and fed him.

So, since she has nowhere else to take him, she brings him home. We have no room for him, with 6 cats and a dog of our own. He’s staying in the garage right now, hobbling around smelling everything. It turns out he is, hands-down, the sweetest dog on the face of the earth. We’re calling him Jack, he’s a blue-heeler/jack-russel/mutt mix. We don’t know what we’re going to do with him, my dad is allergic to animals and we have 7 already.

So my cat is peeing on the beds now…and that warrants a trip to the vet. Turns out she has diabetes, she is extremely overweight, has urinary tract disease, some bowel disease, and an array of others. None of these are going to get any better. So the vet says “Well, you’ll have to isolate her from the rest of the cats because she can’t eat their food. Also you need to force these 3 pills down her throat every day and once before she eats so her urine can acidify and remove the crystals.” This is impossible for us. We leave out bowls of cat food so the cats can eat whenever they want. There is nowhere that we can isolate her, except for the laundry room, but none of this is ever going to get better for her and I don’t think living the rest of your life in a laundry room would be exceptionally exciting. Both my parents work, and when school starts again there will hardly be anyone home most of the time.

The vet won’t put her down, because she’s “too sweet, I’d take her myself before I’d put her down” but then she won’t take her! No one is going to want a cat that requires that much attention and care. No one wants a dog with three legs that is the sweetest, best behaved little puppy ever.

I don’t want to have to put my cat to sleep, I feel so bad about it. We’ve already exhausted any possability of keeping her, and we’re left with keeping her in the laundry room for the rest of her life. I don’t know what to do, and I feel so guilty.

:frowning:

2

I’m afraid I don’t have much to offer about your cat, but don’t sell the puppy short. We used to have a three legged cat (named, of course, Tripod) when I was younger. He was an abandoned barn cat at the stable where we boarded my sister’s horse (people from other stables would occassionally take their ‘spare’ cats and leave them at another stable during horse shows) and so we adopted him. Was his left hind leg, but he walked just fine: step, step, hop… step, step, hop… :slight_smile:

Anyway, the point is that he was a friendliest cat I’ve ever owned. Used to wait for me up on top of the stairs every day when I got home, was always ready for a cuddle and used to love affection. Of course, he was a barn cat at heart so he used to go outside and bring us back mice and birds on a regular basis. Eventually when he died after a long life (15 years!) the vet examined him and noticed a tiny scar on his stump. Seems that most likely he was stepped on by a horse as a kitten and lost his leg that way – we always assumed he was just born without it.

I don’t know how the animal shelters are in your area, but if the dog is as friendly as you say, I’m sure he can find a home. Put an advertisement in the paper or something. Talk to friends. Hopefully someone will open their heart to your warm and friendly little puppy.

3

The vet’s office we took him to started calling him “Stumpy”. I suggested Tripod but I thought Stumpy was pretty good. We’ve taken to calling him Jack now. I hope we get him a home, and I hope I can figure out what to do with my cat.

4

I can’t offer any advice about the cat (unless you’re willing to pick up the other bowls of cat food (& the expensive diabetic cat food too) for a few hours a day to give her some freedom), but we had a dog with just three legs that we got from a rescue centre.

She was a labrador, about 15 months old, & had been kept in a garden shed & allowed to run lose around the neighbourhood. She had 7 puppies & was so black with ingrained dirt that they couldn’t tell what colour she was until they washed her.

We assume a car hit her & they never took her to a vets. They could have kicked her, I guess, we’ll never know. The neighbours never reported it until she had puppies. She’d been out there, unfed & scavenging for months.

Her front right leg was broken and to stop the paw from dragging on the ground, she had held it up in one fixed position for so long while the bones were setting that it had set bone in the ankle/wrist joint. Even then, it still had a huge callus on the front (base) of the paw.

Thanks to the set-bone and the age of the injury, although the rescue centre vet operated to put a plate in & try to reset it, it never worked out & she ended up having the whole leg amputated to the shoulder.

She could run like the wind and was so sweet natured. Even after she had her leg amputated, she’d still try to offer you her paw, although she no longer had it, so you’d rub her shoulder instead.

Anyway, good luck with finding the pup a home - people will take in three legged animals & they make very good pets, surprisingly unbothered by their injuries.

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Where in Colorado are you? I’m in Denver & may have some options for Stumpy. Email me! I’ve done dog foster & rescue & have contacts.

Difficult situation with the cat. You could try the Cat Care society in Lakewood. My vet has a diabetic cat named Phil. Someone brought him in & decided they couldn’t afford the meds or the time, so they left him. He is the official office cat there now.

6

ladyfoxfyre,

Bless your mom for helping that pup … he’ll make a wonderful pet for someone. I have a three-legged dog. JC lost his left front leg this past Christmas to cancer. It took a few weeks for him to recover from the surgery, but it’s amazing how quickly he adjusted to being a tripod. It really doesn’t stop him from doing whatever he wants. I’m grateful he’s still with us.

As for your cat, the only thing you can do to give her more freedom is to take up the food she isn’t supposed to eat. Perhaps you can leave her in the laundry room while you are away, then take up the food when you get home (and overnight) so she can run around the house a bit. Then put the food back down in the morning when she’s in the laundry room again. It might be a bit of a hassle, but it’s certainly better than putting her down (as long as she still seems to be happy, feeling reasonably well, eating, etc.) And once you get used to doing it, it will just become routine.

Good luck. I hope everything turns out well for you.