Pete the pet Vet

Four legs good, two legs better than the alternative MY home town of Bray is on the busy DART and railway line, so our veterinary hospital regularly sees a number of animals who've been hit by trains. Sadly, most animals that survive have such severe injuries that rapid euthanasia is the only way to ease their suffering. Other animals are luckier. I remember a Wicklow Collie who had been missing for twenty-four hours. His worried owner was initially very relieved when he discovered that the dog was back on his doorstep first thing in the morning. However, when the dog stood up to come inside, his owner noticed that the dog was walking on three legs. The poor dog's left hind leg was completely missing. The horrified owner rushed his dog up to our hospital. It turned out that the dog's leg had been neatly amputated, just below the knee, by the wheel of a train. Astonishingly, the severed blood vessels had been sealed by blood clots before the dog had lost a dangerous amount of blood. The dog was very weak, but had somehow been able to walk home. When we examined him, he still had the strength and enthusiasm to wag his tail as we mentioned his name while talking about him. We carried out a neat surgical amputation of the remaining part of the poor dog's leg. The wound healed well, and the collie went on to have a full and active life on three legs. I also remember a cat that had a similar injury to two of its limbs. The extremities of its right foreleg and its right hind leg were removed by a train. The instinctive response to these injuries was that the poor cat should be euthanised at once. However, the owners were adamant that if it was in any way possible, they would like their cat to be saved. Can an animal have a good life on only two legs? I discussed this subject on an international veterinary discussion forum, and the feedback was good. Several other vets had experienced cases of animals that had enjoyed good lives on only two legs. Somebody even sent me a short video, of a collie that was able to run around and play, despite having had its right foreleg and right hind leg amputated. The dog managed to balance, as he trotted along, like a human riding a bicycle. And when he stopped moving forwards, the dog had learned to lean against a wall or a tree. The consensus of the veterinary discussion group was that the cat could have a good life on two legs, but that it would be a case of reassessing the situation as time went by. We proceeded with the operation and, at first, the cat was unable to stand up at all. For a few days we were convinced that we had made the wrong decision. We consoled ourselves with the fact that the cat was not suffering any pain. She lay contentedly on a cushion in her hospital cage, purring and grooming herself. When we sent her home she still refused to move off her cushion, and we did not feel positive about the situation. When she returned for a check-up two weeks later, we were so pleased with her progress that we made our own video of our two-legged cat. Like the collie, she had learned that the secret of balance was to keep moving forwards. She was able to glide gracefully around the room on two legs, and when she stopped, she would simply sit down. It was definitely a case of four legs good, two legs not quite so good, but compared to the alternative, much, much better!'