Miss Jack’s Story

The short version is that Jack showed up outside my door Christmas Eve 2011 when I was living in Sierra Leone. My house had been broken into and I had asked my landlord for more security and this was the result: 

When she was two months old, she was badly injured when she was pushed off a third story balcony by my neighbors. There’s only one vet in Sierra Leone and we weren’t able to repair her leg, but she healed well enough to begin using the leg and coped well for two years. 

During the summer of 2014, it was clear that her leg was causing her too much pain and I started to see specialists to figure out how to help her, but as a recent college graduate working at a nonprofit, figuring out how to afford the surgery scared me. I happened to run into a dog on a walk that summer who had just had her leg amputated at Helping Hands and her person couldn’t say enough good things about the quality of care. I researched and discussed with my primary vet and set an appointment. 

These pictures are from just after the surgery – you can see how happy she is. The relief from the pain was immediate and she healed beautifully. 

Veterinary Surgery for a Dog Leg Amputation – Notes from Dr. Lori Pasternak:

Miss Jack suffered a fracture in her left elbow while living in Africa. Surgical treatment was not available and she was crate rested until it healed.  Her owners kindly adopted her and brought her home to America. Once in America, her lameness continued to worsen and the poorly healed elbow posed a very difficult if not impossible challenge to repair. The fracture involved the elbow joint and had healed abnormally. The owners opted to have the leg amputated to quickly alleviate her pain. Dogs and cats do very well on three legs (check out our amputation video to see for yourself). Miss Jack was back and better than ever quickly after her amputation surgery. She is one lucky dog to be given a chance for a pain free life. She doesn’t care about only having three legs as long as there is no more pain.

Miss Jack 18 Months Later

Here she is a year and a half later, as regal as can be. The only (temporary) loss was that she could no longer shake her paw on command, but she quickly figured out how to offer her right paw instead.