Hello, My dog Pepper just got her right front leg amputated. I'm having a hard time coping with it. Anyways, because she has her leg amputated, there are special spouts that drain blood out of her body, so her leg wont get infected. Is there any type of 3-legged-doggie shirt, designed for them? It will also help if I take her out for a walk so people wont stare or be creeped by the scars. she would only wear this shirt until the scars heal over, and her hair grows back. Please let me know if you have any sugestions.
JJ Lowers
PS. I have already tried making her one, but to no avail.

Hi Cynthia, I too, found your site while looking for info on a prosthetic arm for my recently adopted dog, Griffin. In the end, I was able to devise something myself which does the trick for my little one. I've attached a picture of him. Here's his story: Griffin is a purebred Chihuahua who was born missing his right front leg and with a malformed paw on his left front leg.

Some caring soul called the Chihuahua Rescue when he was born at a neighbor's house and his euthanasia was eminent. He's a year and a half now and had been kept relatively safe but confined to a very small pen with six other dogs at the Rescue. He's got a notch bitten out of one ear from some squabble with his cage mates and hadn't had any experience with everyday dog things like going for walks, house breaking, or even playing with toys.

Brought him home after visiting with him several times and getting that "I'm your dog" vibe from him. He is so happy to have a home, but just running around on the carpet in our apartment gave his feet a nasty rug burn after one day - hence the baby socks on his back legs.

After looking into prosthetics, have now devised what I call his "ballet shoe" for his front leg. This is a simple laced up piece of closed cell foam that slips over a padded baby sock. Because his foot is malformed he had been walking on his wrist bone which isn't designed to handle friction and puts his front end in too low a position...

now the shoe extends the one half a toe he does have in the correct position so that his front end is higher and all bones are cushioned. He's getting used to this and getting stronger everyday - even learning to hop/gallop down the sidewalk after our other Chihuahua! It's quite an amusing and heart warming sight to see...

The look on his face sometimes is what I imagine Pinocchio had when he became a real boy :) The happy consequence of now being able to go outside is that he's almost housebroken after three weeks - yahoo!

Thanks for such a great site where we can all share stories like this!

-Christine Shearer