Hello Cynthia, my name is Linda Rubin, I live in Bandon Oregon. My husband and I have just adopted an amputee poodle after doing some homework and finding your web-site, which helped us make our decision.... his name is Manny, we've had him less than a week and he has our hearts already. Here's our story....and pictures of Manny's first grooming after we brought him home. Thank you, Linda & Don too! The first thing I learned about Manny, a black standard poodle, is that he was found at a construction site in Oregon with a big German Shepherd whose name is Rex. The reason we know their names is because they each had a tag on their collars with their names on them. Manny and Rex, just that, no people names, no address, no phone numbers. Whoever found them took them to a shelter. I don't know why, but they called poodle rescue about Manny, I've been told they don't always do that. But, long story short, Deb heard about him and told us he was available for adoption. We were looking for a poodle (at least my husband was!) because in the previous month we lost our big white fluffy dog Luke a.k.a. standard poodle. Don wanted to replace him quickly. Sometime in his life before, Manny lost his left front leg, of course we don't know how that happened and he's not talking! After 3 weeks at the shelter, although they had cleaned up his face a bit, with a shave, he was pretty scrungy. We had seen a picture of him taken at the shelter with a fuzzy face, on-line, so when we saw him with a cleaner face we were surprised. We took about 15 minutes to decide, fill out an application, go through the paperwork and get him out of there. That night we stayed with Manny in a motel, where he was a perfect gentleman, slept on his own queen sized bed, and didn't make a sound. Then after breakfast the next morning we brought him home. It's only been a few days now, but, he is delightful, he's very well mannered and loves to "go"! We feel badly about Rex; but, we're told that he went to a new home today too. Now, we look forward to taking care of and totally enjoying Manny!

Linda & Don Rubin
Bandon, Oregon
Tuesday December 7, 2004

Hi! I would like to tell you about my little miracle baby. My parents have two Golden Retrievers and on December 1, 2004 their girl dog Bella had TEN puppies. It took seven hours between puppy number one and number ten. Well we let Bella clean the babies up and feed them and later on that day we started checking them all out. We noticed number ten had a deformed front leg; it seemed to have not developed all the way. She seemed healthy otherwise and was eating all right so we decided to just keep an eye on it.

Well, after a few days the puppy's leg began to turn black. My mom called the vet and took her in. The vet told her there were three options: put her to sleep, leave the leg and she would die within a week or two from infection, or try to amputate the leg. He told her that because of her age there was a chance her little body wouldn't be able to take the surgery.

My mom called me at home that night and we decided there was only one real option; we decided to risk the surgery for the chance of giving the puppy life. By this point, I had decided that she made it through that I would adopt her. My children and I named her Nemo (after the Disney fish with a deformed fin). So when Nemo was five days old she had her leg amputated.

The vet did not remove the shoulder as this is a much more invasive surgery and she was too young. I went with my mom to the vets and we waited nervously for the surgery to be finished. The doctor came out about an hour later and told us she made it. A few days after surgery Nemo's mommy accidentally pulled her stitches out and we had to take her back in and get staples.

The hardest part was keeping bandaging on it because she wiggled around so much. Nemo is 5.5 weeks old now and is doing wonderful.

Her mommy weaned them all kind of early so she eats puppy chow and is paper trained. She walks a little, but still falls over a lot and is knocked over even more often by her siblings. She wrestles with all nine of them though and does a pretty good job holding her own. She is slightly more spoiled than the others (imagine that). She is very affectionate and loves to be cuddled and loves giving kisses.

She will be coming to live with myself and my children in a couple of weeks, but will still spend the days at her mom's house until she's older because I am in school full time during the week and don't want to leave her alone.

My children are four and six years old and worry a lot about Nemo and whether she'll be bale to do things other dogs do, so this web site put a lot of their fears to rest seeing how healthy and happy some other three legged dogs are. I have included two pictures of our miracle puppy.

This will be my first time ever owning a puppy, not to mention a three legged one, so any suggestions are welcome. I am a bit concerned about potty training her because she doesn't walk well yet and we live in Wisconsin so there is snow outside, so if anyone has an idea let me know. Thanks for listening to our story!

Erin Conklin
Thursday January 6th, 2005

UPDATE:

Hi! I had emailed you January of last year about our new puppy, Nemo. A Golden Retriever we adopted, who had to have her leg amputated when she was five days old. Now that she is almost a year and a half old I thought we would give you an update.

Nemo is a wonderful dog, who doesn't let her missing leg affect her in any way. We really haven't found anything she can't do. She runs, jumps, plays and more. She loves to go swimming and when she gets tired she simply climbs on someone's back to take a rest. She also loves to take walks and actually takes me for walks!

The only hang up we had, was when she was about 8 months old she sprained her only front leg playing. Because she could not simply "stay off of it" like most dogs it took a while to heal. We had to carry her around for about a week, and she had some anti-inflammatory medicine, but she healed up just fine.

Nemo now has two new best buddies, Her cats Yahtzee and Domino. From the day we brought them home Nemo took them as her own. Domino sleeps with her every night and even tries to nurse off of her. Yahtzee likes to tease Nemo and ride around on her tail.

She is the greatest dog anyone could ask for. She is my children's best friend and helps me tuck them in every night. She is also quite attached to her dad. My fiance and I are getting married in May and I'm pretty sure Nemo thinks he is her man! Thanks for letting us update you on our wonderful three legger. I have included a picture of her as a puppy, one of her a few weeks ago and one of her and her kitty Domino.

Thanks Again,
Erin Conklin and Family
Friday March 31, 2006