My Tripawd Family

May the fall be long and the winter mild!

Utterly ignoring the relentless barking of the neighbor dog,  Biff enjoys a lovely fall day.  Gabby was indoors barking back!  Good spunky girl!

Gabby has lymphoma.  The best case is if it can be pushed into remission by chemo for some months.  Biff and Sunshine are aware something’s off.   Cats too. They sure are sweet trying to comfort us.  Despite their efforts I’m just a blubbering basket case.  Again we are grateful to the tripawds community for helping us through such times.  Just posting here helps.  Thanks.

Biff loves bedtime!   I think he loves bedtime almost as much as the dog park! As the tallest of the three tripawds he has the easiest time getting up and down but he is also the best at taking over the bed altogether. New readers might find Biff’s experience convalescing after his amputation correction informative. We sure learned a lot.

3+ years after amputation and chemo, Gabby continues to charge ahead on nature hikes in the woods.  She loves to eat tasty cicadas or even just their husks. 

We’re so very grateful to the Tripawds community for encouraging us when we were faced with tough decisions about her treatment.

Here’s Gabby resting proudly after a long romp around Raccoon Lake.

Thanks, Tripawds!

Here’s a valuable and inexpensive lesson. Gabby has aging hips, and she sometimes has stiffness and little troubles here and there occasionally. Thanks to her love of walking she has strong muscles that help a great deal to keep her hips fit. In fact, the vet in this story gave Gabby’s hips an excellent pognosis based upon feeling them and testing her limberness and stuff. The reason for this vet visit was that Gabby had somewhat abruptly seemed weaker, less steady, and less happy. We spent days “barking up the wrong tree” (pun intended!) thinking that it had to do with her existing hip issues and adjusting her medicam and adjusting walk/rest ratio and cooing and fawning over her and so forth. But, the vet visit was s.m.r.t. smart because te vet found the (dog not deer!) TICK! TICK?! But we’re barely past Groundhog Day! In fact, the tick was dead and removed yesterday and left a nasty mark so it probably was on her for a few days, perhaps even back in January. The lovely warm weather has brought beautiful walks throughout the winter, but it has a side-effect. Be warned. Gabby is visibly spunkier and stronger only one day after removing the tick. What a dunce I was! Warm winter means keep the flea/tick defenses up!

Having just read about Bandit’s surgery two years ago, I got nostalgic about Gabby’s surgery, just a little more than two years back.  It’s now been so long that I am hard-pressed to remember her with 4 legs.  I love the pre- and post-op pictures of my special brave little girl, so here they are.

"I'm ready for my surgery Daddy!"

"Ahhhhhh no more hurty leg!"

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At first it made me cry to look at that post-op picture, but it’s become a treasured memento after  more happy times like these:

Early spring camping trip dinner stop

Summer chillin at Happy Hollow

Dad's-eye view of a fall walk

This is what happens after just one night of fun family camping:

Tired Gabby and Biff

Sleepy Sunshine

Everybody loves a good night of camping. Especially when there are so many exciting raccoons around!

It all started when there was a tripawd in the local newspaper and everyone called to tell me about it. At first I was able to ignore them. How could we handle another dog? Could we? Well … why not? You can see how the train of thought went. Needless to say, after meeting her, we knew we should bring her into our home.

Sunshine is a sweet, loving 10-year-old boxer/beagle mix who is missing her right rear leg. She had been hit by a car two years ago, and today is healthy and exuberant. She adores her new canine younger brother and sister, and she gets along well with the cats. Welcome to the family, Sunshine!!

Sunshine and Gabby, happy new sisters

Yesterday when I asked Biff if he wanted to go in the car, he seemed somewhat interested.  Not the through-the-roof excitement he had before surgery, but some.  It turned out he was afraid to get into the car.  I think he was afraid jumping up would hurt.  He bravely got into the car, and there was no pain!  He turned and looked at me with a big smile on his face. 🙂  We went to a forest preserve with Gabby, and there Biff seemed to gain even more confidence.  We hopped up and down some stairs, across wooded areas, and next to a stream.  When it came time to leave, he jumped into the car with full confidence!

Biff says there is nothing like a trip to the park to boost one’s spirits.