Author: caitlinsam

 Does everyone remember how i said the 19th was an important day for us last year? Well, on November 19th our new puppy was born. He is biologically Duchess’ nephew, his mom being her full sister.
His name is Moose. He is currently 4months old, and amazing. He’s confident, sweet & stubborn.
I kind of abandoned this blog after Duchess passed because I didn’t know what else to say, but today Moose found her stick in the yard. So i feel like I can share here the comparison of our tripawd girl on St Pattys Day ‘19 next to our boy Moose with her same stick in almost the exact same spot a few days difference 1yr later.


We will be coming up on our 1yr without her. I don’t know how we’ll feel but I do remember February 19th I thought about her a lot, being 1yr from her amputation. It’s crazy what we go through in the span of 365 (366 this year) days.
I hope everyone is well & that their tripawd warriors are fighting on! I know Duchess will look after Moose from above ❤️

On June 19,2019 Duchess gained her wings and left us to cross the rainbow bridge.

I know I haven’t posted in a long time, as her recovery went amazingly well and we were just living our lives! But about 3 days before the 19th, she started acting “funny”. Which in our world means she left about 10 kibbles per meal in her bowl. Which was NOT normal. We investigated by going to the vets and chiropractor. The chiropractor then found something which was blatantly obvious, but somehow we didn’t see. Her tumor recurred. Same spot, much bigger. To us it looked like her shoulder which we forgot she didn’t have anymore. We spent 5yrs looking at a shoulder blade so I guess when it came back it wasn’t so strange to see as a tripawd.

Anyways. We immediately took her back to her amazing surgeons who ran scans and found not only was it back but it had spread and overcome her lungs. We were broken. She was in unmanageable plain. They literally couldn’t get on top of it. That very day, we let her go. One day. We visited her and just couldn’t look at her in that pain and DEFINITELY couldn’t leave her overnight to suffer through our decision time. I bawled for days but we just had to.

I miss her every second of every day. Everything happened on the 19th. February 19 we removed her leg, June 19 she was gone. And July 19 we brought home her cremains. I don’t regret her living as a tripawd for one second tho, because we got 4 AMAZING AND HAPPY months with her. She only suffered her last couple of days.

Anyways, I can’t thank this community enough for the support along the way.

Our girl is back in full force

happy st Patrick’s day tripawd friends and family 🍀🐾

Duchess has had a great week

Staples are out, a few were “twisted” so it was a bit of a bloody removal but we have a soap & luckily she’s already on antibiotics so no infection issues.

She is now able to go on short walks which she LOVES! As soon as we put her coat on that tail (or whip as we call it) was going top speed!

As I mentioned earlier this week she’s back to bringing toys over to her human friends & has a ton more energy! Not super vocal yet unless you bug her enough to get some backsass. Otherwise I really see my girl back in action!

We are going to start working on her with stairs slowly, going up is no problem but she is hesitant to go down more than 2 steps as she wants to jump them rather than take them 1 by 1. Which at our home we have a set of 7 and 9 so jumping is not an option. Slowly but surely we’ll get her confidence up, as we know she can do it she’s just gotta trust herself more!

 

Thank you to everyone who’s given support and suggestions through these couple of weeks of recovery! Little tips here and there have helped me with my decisions & any anxieties I’ve had.

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Duchess is the kind of dog where she’s nervous at first but when she’s ready to make friends will bring the person a toy. To family, if you walk in the house she immediately brings toys.

Post op she hasn’t had any desire to play or pick up toys and TODAY when I came to visit her (reminder I live 45mins away and she is currently recovering at my moms house) she picked up her toy and brought it to me!!

 

im so happy to see my girl feeling more herself. The last thing I’m looking forward to seeing is her talk back to us. She’s very sassy and likes to howl and bark to communicate. We to date have to kind of force it out of her, so I’m waiting for her to do it on her own