Blog of Io the Wolfhound

It is with great sadness that we have to report that we have just had to have Io  put to sleep.
 Not exactly sure what happened but he started limping last week and yelped a couple of times when he took a step. He had a fall when out on a walk and our vets thought the has pulled a muscle or strained his shoulder so he had some anti inflammatory treatment and a painkiller. He actually got better for a couple of days but then the limp/yelp started again and it went downhill very quickly from there and by today he was losing control of his back legs and he was obviously suffering badly. We arranged another emergency appointment at the vets and run through everything that could be causing this and any prognosis as such but I think we all knew there was only one thing to do.
 Io passed away peacefully with his head nestled on my wife’s shoulder.

We will miss him terribly but are so happy for the 11 months we had with him and the fact that he enjoyed life so much with three legs. We consider it a real honour to have been able to experience first hand the way our four/three legged friends simply get on with life.

RIP Lil Io (big head nothing in it) – We will miss you

It has been too long since we updated the blog, mainly because we  (happily I suppose !)  have almost nothing to report 🙂 . 

Io is still going well and we have almost started to live in a relaxed state as Tripawd owners !!.  He went to the vets last week to have a check as it is 6 months since he finished chemo.  The vet gave him a quick checkover and she was happy with him and so it was a quick visit as we had already decided that  we were not interested in him having precautionary x-rays and blood tests.  

A couple of pictures – one on a rest stop on his walks and another in the garden (excuse the mess – we are having a new garage built !!)

Io, Cobweb, Rog and Mitch

Update time as we approach the 6 month mark !.

In all honesty we haven’t got too much to report, Io is still doing well and we have all now settled down to life with a Tripawd.   The only real “problem” we have had was just how much we let him return to his old ways of charging around the woods trying to keep the local rabbit population in check, in the end we have decided that we didn’t come through all of this stress and cost to have him lead a restricted life so we let him get on with it just like he did on 4 legs (sometimes you just have to not look !! ) .

I am not sure if other Tripawds owners find this but if he does have a fall then it is actually always at walking speed or when standing, when he runs it is actually quite hard to see that he is missing a leg.   He did manage to  topple head first into his water bowl the other day, I think he couldn’t be bothered to take an extra hop forward that he really needed and over stretched when leaning forward thus slowly toppling head first into the bowl  (yes – I know I shouldn’t have laughed ).

We now incorporate a rest into the walks to give his a bit of a rest, he seem to quite enjoy the stops and a lie down although we suspect that he thinks we actually need the rest !.  Having a rest is never actually a great problem as so many people stop and chat to us about him, it is always nice how many say “how happy” he looks.  We always tell them he is but not as happy as us to still have him with us 🙂

A few piccies for the past few weeks

Regards

Io and co

Time for an update as it has been too long (we have been taking a bit of a break after the last few traumatic months 🙂 ).
Io had his last chemo treatment a couple of weeks ago and so now that is the end of the scheduled trips to the vets !!. We had no side effects at all from this treatment although Io does now seem to have forgotten his regular visits to the vets and has returned to being very scared and trembling whilst there. We had to explain to the poor Chemo vet that this is how he always used to be as she was desperately worried that she had done something to make him so scared all of a sudden after his previous (fairly) relaxed visits
Io continues to make good progress and we have even started to take him for walks around the woods that used to be his regular haunt, we can’t take him round the really rough stuff but he really enjoys it and happily gets around on his three legs, he even had a huge wolfie play with his sister in the garden last week although it did end up with an over optimistic high speed cornering attempt that ending with his front leg sliding out from under him but he managed to break his fall nicely with his face giving him a fantastic grass stain on the left side of his face and neck !!!. He have noticed that his stamina can be erratic, one day he will seem to be full of energy and want to keep going while others he seems to get tired very quickly and seems to struggle a little bit physically which worried us greatly at first but I think we have simply come to terms that he had good and bad days with the energy like we all do.
But overall it is nice to have the Vets visits behind us and settle down to enjoy the time we now have with Io in the knowledge that we so made the right decision for the little boy !!

Sorry for the big gap, we’ve had phone and internet problems which have made trying to post anything impossible. Anyway, Io had his third lot of chemo on 22nd February. He wasn’t keen this time which is disappointing because everyone there is lovely and really makes a big effort. We think it might be because as far as Io’s concerned everything is back to normal and there is no reason for him to go to the vets! His last session is in a couple of weeks and I hope he behaves himself at that one!! He has proved he is capable of towing someone across the floor and still staying upright and well balanced but this isn’t necessarily a talent we think he needs to show off a lot ;-).
He was also noticably quiet for a couple of days after the chemo but we think it may have simply been that he is doing so well lately it was more noticable this time, he is now back to himself and continuing to do all of things we thought we wouldn’t see again – Jumping a ditch was his achievement this week !

Io had his second lot of chemo today. Last time he lay there calmly and was a very good boy. This time he decided to wander off part way through and pulled the catheter out. Ooops, I’ll take him for a longer walk before the next one! One of the nurses took some pics of him to show other nurses she’s training that a big dog can cope well with amputation. I’m going to send her some videos of him running about being happy 🙂 I’ve told her about the site and will include the web address in my email so she can show everybody all the big happy tripawds-and the lil happy tripawds too!! It is lovely to think that we might be helping other dogs to have a chance at life with 3 legs rather than thinking they won’t be able to manage. Io has only fallen over twice since he came home 1st January. The first time he had his harness on and stood on his bed to have a good old shake-I think he slipped and he certainly blamed me! The second time he was trying to arrange his chew bone (still hasn’t perfected his technique but he’ll get there) and I think he just forgot and tried to put a phantom paw on it. He did yelp when he went down and it did frighten me, but in true doggy form he forgot about it straight away, it was just me worrying about it all night. The worst part about chemo so far is definitely the lack of breakfast before we go. I got throroughly told off because it was late and then told off again later when it didn’t appear at all.

It seems almost impossible to think that Io has only been a Tripawd for 25 days – seems like we have been going through this together for such a long time now.

However he is still doing really well .  He is being very lucky in having almost no side effects from the Chemo apart from the odd funny tum and continues to adapt to life on three legs – he even seems intent on proving me wrong when I told him he would have to pee like a lady from now on and is perfecting his leg cocking balance !.

We have gradually been increasing his time out and he is building up his stamina, out today he even met a 6 month old labrador pup called jasper who wanted to play, play, play like they do.  Io decided there was no way he was letting him down and shot off with him – he managed a couple of circles chasing after Jasper at speed before face planting into the dirt !!.

Took a bit of video of him today (not the Jasper part as I was stood frozen in a mixture of terror and awe as Io decided only having 3 legs is not going to stop him playing).

Quick clip of Io out and about today –> IO

earlier on today Io picked up a chewbone but couldn’t decide how to chew it-several minutes of being stared at from under his eyebrows and then he wandered off. Just now he picked it up again and managed to give it a chew-after he’d kicked it single pawed round the room a bit to show it who’s boss first. His sister was so impressed she went and trashed one of their beds. Perhaps it’s something in the water?!? This evening one of our daughters had been telling us a story about something that had made her smile and we agreed it’s the little things that make life good, and this was certainly one of those 🙂