If you remember, I recently posted about our foster dog who ended up needing a limb amputation surgery unexpectedly. Well, we are more than a week after her surgery and I am so pleased to report she’s doing amazingly well!

While she’s our second tripod foster, she’s the first one we’ve taken through the surgery ourselves. I am not going to lie, it was tough! That first night, I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to do it. She hurt so bad and was so scared that I hurt for her. She broke my heart. But the rescue owner assured me she’d feel better in the morning. And then even better in 3 days. I left her sleeping on a dog bed to sleep myself, and while she cried out a few times, she seemed to have slept well. The next morning I went out to see her and she got up and went outside for a potty then ate her breakfast. By day 3 I had worried that we were running out of pain meds, but the rescue owner indicated we likely would not need them, and that any pain she was feeling was more likely the anticipation of pain from having been in pain for so long before.

She was right! Our sweet foster did so well after day 3. We are now 10 days out from surgery and yesterday we went for a walk! She hops all over the house and is clearly not feeling any pain. I am so excited to see her after she gets her staples out on Friday. The dog with the scared eyes has turned into a dog that’s just so happy to be alive, be pain free, and be giving her attentions and love to all humans. She’s a delight!

We had committed to another foster before our tripod foster, and she arrived this weekend. We do not typically take 2 fosters at once because we do not have a fenced yard and it’s tough to take 4 dogs out on leashes every time they need to go out! But we had committed and we don’t back out on our commitments to fosters.

So this weekend we got to meet our little JRT mix who is both nervous and extremely curious! She does not have any health issues to manage, and she’s ready for adoption immediately. I doubt we’ll have her long as she’s very very cute. And I’ll be honest, if she gets adopted fast, I’ll be thrilled to be left with our tripod who is by far the easier of the two fosters. Our tripod foster is a “turnkey” dog. She’s potty trained, she fits into our routine perfectly, she doesn’t destroy anything, she gets along with our dogs and she is really nice. Our new little JRT mix has energy to spare, is terribly (and cutely!) naughty, needs a LOT of attention, and whines a lot when she doesn’t get that attention. All of this makes her fun to me, but that doesn’t make her an easy foster.

Ultimately, what I look forward to most is simply seeing who will end up becoming their new homes. Will they have kids to play with? Other dogs in their home? Will the new families stay in touch and give us updates? Fostering is such a rewarding experience!

We have received another foster dog in our lives and she has been keeping us surprisingly busy. We had agreed to take on a foster dog with a broken leg. The vet from the rural town she’s from put her in a splint and our rescue agreed to take her.

When we got her, we realized she was in a livestock splint, totally inappropriate for a dog. So the owner of the rescue immediately called our vet to get her seen first thing monday morning for a proper splint.

Later that evening (it was a saturday) I touched base with the rescue owner to let her know that I felt that this foster was in far more pain than she should be. I had hoped that this was because she was in a livestock splint. But I worried that there was more going on with her than we anticipated. The rescue owner got us some pain killers to put her on while waiting for her Monday vet appointment. She also indicated that the rural vet did not send any xrays. This was a red flag.

On Monday my daughter dropped her off at the rescue vet and I waited to hear from the rescue what was going on. The news was not good.

The vet took an xray and the rescue owner, outside the door, could hear the exclamation of alarm from the vet. You can see that her bone is not in a nice clean break, it’s a mangled mess. (She was hit by a car.) Furthermore, the livestock splint was making the entire thing more painful as it was not holding anything in place, and working around it was actively moving her break. This was why I was seeing such high signs of pain in her. I was reading it correctly.

The only solution is an amputation, which was set up for today. In the meantime, the vet removed the livestock splint and put her in a wrap to keep her as comfortable as possible. Plus more good drugs for her.

She was, without a doubt, more comfortable out of the livestock splint and on heavier drugs. I then spent the week prepping for her surgery. The rug in that photo is not mine, it’s borrowed from another foster home. My hope is that it’ll help her not slip on our hardwood floors as she recovers. Throughout all of this, despite what must have been extreme pain, this little dog has been so so sweet! Even though this project is a much larger project than I ever anticipated, I am very glad she was rescued, she’s worth it. And I am glad we were able to get an answer as fast as possible, showing us her best path forward. She’s our second leg amputee foster and the first one was such a fantastic firecracker of a dog! I know this one will do wonderfully as well once her healing is complete.