The Story of Three-Legged Greg

I'm having a really rough time coping with the stress of school, work, life stuff and caring for my current foster dog. So I thought I'd share my favourite vet school story so far, that of three-legged Greg.

Only 5 days old, Greggie was brought into our clinic to be euthanized because his leg had been badly damaged. We think his mom chomped on it when giving birth to him and it had since become badly infected. We had literally drawn up the solution to euthanize him with but he was so vigorously trying to suckle on the Doctor's fingers that we decided to give him a shot.

The infection from his stump was rising up his little leg, so we had to wait until the antibiotics did their trick before it was safe to amputate the rest of the dead bone. In the meantime, we had to get him fat and strong. Which meant feeding him every 2-3 hours for the first week or so.

As a full-time vet student, who lived a town over from campus, I had to figure out where to keep him during the day when I had class. Enter my friend Kaylie, who kindly lent me some closet space and her photography skills to document his cuteness. We ran home between classes whenever he needed to be fed.

Over the next two weeks we watched him grow big and strong. It was starting to look like this pup was going to beat the odds.

Once he was big enough and the infection was under control, he underwent what was the most stressful surgery that I've helped with so far. One of the awesome vets at my clinic did the whole procedure for only $50, was very helpful for this poor student, haha.

It was touch and go for a night or two, but Greggie pulled through like the fighter he is.

It's amazing how quickly babies adapt. Greggie was up and moving in no time, although he did walk sideways for a little while.

Although I would have loved to keep him, we had an amazing family that was interested and with them he would get much more attention than my schedule would allow longterm.

Although it sucked to say goodbye, Kaylie and I still get to visit Greg now and then. His new name is Storm and he is thriving in his new home.