A couple of weeks ago our kitten, Ziggy, got attacked by a dog (unfortunately we didn’t see it. We have our suspicions about which dog, but just that, suspicions). He had bite wounds in his leg and belly and a broken leg and hip.
We should have had the leg amputated right then (could have saved ourselves a boatload of money), but we were feeling extremely emotional, especially my wife who would not stop blaming herself because it was her idea to allow the cats outside (no more). So we asked to ahve them try and save the leg, and while that went well for a while, the leg got an infection and it was very painful and uncomfortable for Ziggy.
So Friday we decided to have his right left leg amputated. And you know what? He is alrady acting like a kitten! He seems totally unaffected and purrs and eats and tries to jump up on the bed (we have to stop him of course, the stitches). So while previously it was very stressful day to day, we are now feeling so much better about our kitten. His stitches come out a week from this coming Thursday and then he can be with the other cats like a normal kitten!
As required here is a picture of Ziggy at 2 months old (he is now 6 months old):
And here is a picture of Ziggy (on the right) with his best bud, Mr. Burns:
Aw! Thanks for doing the right thing by Ziggy, who is adorable. Will he tend to zig and zag when he walks? Because that will be funny. A friend of mine just told me about a cat of hers that got along fine with 3 legs from ages 10 to 17.
I grew up with a 3-legged cat - he lost his hind leg to a car accident. Didn’t seem to slow him down at all, and in fact I think he had something to prove. He was a definite over-achiever in providing “gifts” of mice, birds, baby rabbits, snakes, etc.
Animals adapt much better than people expect to the loss of a limb or an eye or whatever. He’s lucky to have a family that will spend what’s needed to give him a long and happy life, with three legs or four.
Our cat recently became a tripod at age 14 or so (unsure of exact age) after a nasty bout with foot cancer. He’s still hunting, still fat, still just as grumpy as ever.
Paging Opalcat . . . She had a kitty recently that had a front leg amputated. Kitty has since gone on (it was an older cat), but had a much improved remaining quality of life (and was also bouncing around right after surgery, IIRC).
Our pug recently lost an eye. Like you, we spent a lot of effort, time, and money into saving it, but we probably should have just removed it from the start; we really just wanted her not to be in any pain. Since the removal, she’s adjusting well and seems happier than when she was living with the damaged eye.
Poor little pug. One of our friends now calls her “Winky”.
We adopted our cat Petra at 3 months old. She had some sort of accident at 8 weeks and was found at the side of the road with her rear left leg mangled and smashed, so they amputated, and fostered for a month to recover, and the day she was declared ready for adoption at the shelter was the day we went in to find a kitty.
Since then, she’s been quite healthy (aside from the time she swallowed a needle, which I wrote about here on the dope several years ago). She’s now five years old and can do almost everything a four-legs can do. She can’t jump up very high, and she can’t scratch her own left ear (she wiggles her hip muscle/stump so we can tell her ear itches and scratch it for her). But because her leg was amputated when she was so young, she doesn’t know any different. And when she runs, it looks like a rabbit hopping.
Your kitty will do just fine and pretty soon he will be doing everything he did before - except perhaps scratching an ear if he lost a back leg.
My dad has a three-legged dog who doesn’t really notice that it’s gone. He only has a little trouble on slippery floors and ice because he can’t balance as well on them. Other than that, he’s as energetic as any dog I’ve ever seen.
My college had a café named after a three-legged cat that had lived on the campus (before my time). He allegedly sired a large portion of the next generation of cats in that town.
Our cat was missing his front paw after he got it caught in a muskrat trap. He wasn’t quite as nimble as other cats, but made it around all right. He was a big, dominant old tom and would get in fights quite often with other cats who thought he was easy pickings, forgetting that only having only one leg up front means its *really[/y] strong.
It was very funny to see his shoulder move when trying to bat at some toy.
I highly recommend not getting him declawed. He’ll need the extra grip.
When I was a kid, my brother’s cat got its left front leg mangled in a nocturnal adventure of some sort (we never knew what, and the cat wasn’t saying), and eventually it was amputated. Not a minute too soon IMO; the bone had been exposed so long it was dried out. Anyway, Smokey recovered in no time and carried on as though nothing had happened. The only real change was that he couldn’t bury his leavings in the litter tray anymore; he’d stand and wiggle his shoulder, which only moved the litter in his mind.
