Hi Cassie-

I adopted JP in February 2008.
He's a Samoyed/St. Bernard mix, is missing his left rear leg
and has a deformed front left leg.

He was tied up and tortured by children.
He finally broke free and was hit by a tanker truck.
It took his owner a while to get him treatment,
so his rear leg was useless and his front leg healed with his paw turned almost backwards.

When the owner saw what it was going to cost to have JP "repaired," he turned him in to a rescue group.

The NC State Veterinary Teaching Hospital
donated surgeon time and discounted their services.
They were able to remove his back leg and somewhat correct his front leg.

His front paw now points to the side rather than backwards.
I met him at that hospital.

I lost my 17 year old Samoyed, Miss Ivory, to a brain tumor in October 2007. Losing her was devastating. My sister's senior kitty was failing and was hospitalized at the VTH.

I walked in with my sister that morning to have her kitty euthanized, and saw a beautiful white, fuzzy boy laying in the floor.

He had the same, soulful brown eyes that my old girl had, and the same indomitable spirit.

His back leg was gone at that point, and had healed very well, and he was wearing a cast on his front leg.

I was in love.

I sat down beside him on the floor and I knew he was meant to be my boy. The woman handling him told me he was a rescue and was up for adoption. I put my application in that day, and brought him home three weeks later.

I can't imagine my life without him.

He lives with a rambunctious Rottweiler named Fargo and a 5 pound Yorkie named Bismarck. He still has some pain in his front leg, but gets around pretty well for a boy with only two good legs.

He's an angel, and despite being so badly mistreated, doesn't have an aggressive bone in his body.

He even manages to excavate the yard with his bad front leg.

This is a picture of me and my sweet boy. He's a 70 pound lap dog.

Mary Osborne
Monday October 20, 2008

Our dog Pepper is a 9 1/2 yr. old Black Lab.

The vet found a bone tumor on his left front 'wrist' area about 10 days ago. It's Osteosarcoma, and is aggressive, malignant and he was getting more and more lame by the day.

We made the tough decision to have it amputated on 10/30.

He is 3 days out now and doing a bit better, although it has been a challenge to get him to eat. Like everybody has said, they pop up and walk right away, although cautiously and pretty slow.

He's pretty loopy from the narcotics but he is a great dog and loves life, so we are hopeful that he'll be able to run around a bit soon and eventually be able to take easy short hikes.

We live in the mountains of Colorado and he has grown up exploring, hiking and swimming regularly... and know that he wants more!

It's great to know that there are lots of happy three-legged dogs out there!

Cheers!

Dennie Moore
Sunday November 2, 2008

UPDATE:

This awesome guy is now 2 weeks out of his amputation surgery and doing great! He's up and down our stairs (carefully), in and out of the car, eating well and just doing better every day.

We are so thankful to still have him and know that he's happy every day that he gets out for walks ('hops') and little adventures around the neighborhood.

It's definitely a little crazy to see him with a 15"scar and no leg,
but we keep reminding ourselves that he's still the exact same dog on the inside!

The first 5 days were the hardest on all of us,
but since then, the daily improvements have been great!

Thanks for hosting this spot where we can share our stories.

Dennie Moore
Edwards, CO
Thursday November 13, 2008