I visited Tess at her vets when she was 6 years old. She had a repeatedly sore area in front of her hindleg, which would keep getting infected and she would make it sore from licking. The leg itself was short and deformed from an accident and fracture repair when she was very young, and she couldn’t use the leg at all, not even for balance. The fracture repair had been done at a different vet and no records were available.

 

Our investigations showed that the sore area was over a screw in her femur (thigh bone) and the fracture repair had failed so badly that the femur was bent at 90 degrees and the fracture didn’t appear to have completely healed. She had been licking the skin as the bone and screws underneath were probably aching. As the leg was so contracted and deformed it couldn’t be made functional again, and it was time to set Tess free from the painful leg that had been holding her back.

 

Her leg was amputated through the hip joint, made a little more difficult than normal because the femur came out of her hip joint at a very unnatural angle. Without the leg holding her back, she was soon on her feet and ready to go home. She can run around and play like a normal dog now and is a fine example of how dogs can really cope on three legs if they have to.