Arguments For and Against Amputation

Here is Fang, and his lump (you can see on the right side of his body … well, his left and our right… you get it). You can feel the lump a lot better than you can see it. This picture was taken yesterday. He is still fine, with no pain, but his habits have changed. He now sleeps on the bed with us, which is absolutely unheard of. He is NOT a bed cat…. Well, he is now. I think that he senses that something weird is going on with his body, even if it’s not bothering him. Or he just knows that I am sick with depression and anxiety. Probably it’s a mixture of both.

So, in making this decision (about whether to amputate or put my baby boy to sleep), I have been doing a ton of web research. It has both made me feel worse and better – I should say, is has made me much more realistic. Either way, I very much suggest watching videos of tri-pod cats, and finding online communities of people who have gone through this extremely difficult time. I am focusing on front-leg amputation stories, as it seems that the front and back leg are very different things to lose. Back-leg amputees seem to have a much better time of it… but hey, we can’t choose these things.

Where Do I Find Information?

(1) YouTube it. There are way more three legged cats out there than you realize – I was shocked. Some of the videos will make you sad, and some will make you happy. Either way, you’ll be much more knowledgeable.

(2)  So, for online communities, I highly recommend TriPawds forums. Note that these are mostly three-legged dog owners, rather than cats, but they have been through the process, have tons of information available for reading, and really know their stuff about managing pain, and just the entire process. Not only that, but they are extremely, extremely supportive. I think I have answers about my first frantic post about Fang within 20 minutes. Since then I’ve had a pretty steady flow of posts and answers. They’ve been wonderful and they’ve made me feel much better – and much less alone.

(2) “Advice for Three Legged Cats“. This was an article/blog written by a tri-pod owner, but the comment section became sort of a forum for tri-pod kitty people. I posted on there and had tons of cat amputation stories and support right away.

(3) Use a completely unrelated forum that you already visit. There are more three-legged cat people out there than I would have thought. I posted on my BackyardChickens forum because I was so distraught and needed to talk to someone who had a three-legged cat – I was just grasping for straws. Surprisingly, I got a ton of responses from three-leg kitty owners explaining their stories, and h0w their kitties have managed. You never know.

The point is.. don’t suffer alone. There are lots of people that have been through the same agonizing question – they can’t give you the right answer (only you can do that), but they can tell you a bit about their choice and how it played out for them. I don’t think there is a “right” answer, to be honest with you… but it helps to see what’s happened to other kitties.

Arguments For and Against Amputation

You’re going to notice that no one wins this self-debate. These are the things that people have told me, or that are going through my mind, and the counterpoints that also go through my mind. I don’t think there’s a right choice – but this is where my constant nagging mind has gotten me.

For Euthanization: Amputation is a catastrophic loss – it is not natural for a cat to try to live with three legs. It will be a very difficult and arduous life, even if it is not painful. The cat will not be able to do the things he used to do – he will not be able to climb like he once did, or walk as quickly – and he will have no idea why. If he wakes up one day without an arm, that would be an extremely scary, confusing, and frustrating experience for him. He would also be in pain for a while during recuperation. There is no guarantee that he will adapt very well – especially if he is a bit older. There is no guarantee that he will not suffer from phantom-limb pain, which occurs fairly often in cats and dogs, and which many vets still do not necessarily recognize or do anything to prevent during or before surgery unless you expressly do the research and ask them, and even then it might occur. There is no guarantee that he will not suffer from arthritis in his remaining limbs, and that might make it more difficult. Moreover, the difficulty is that you cannot guarantee that his quality of life will be good, and there isn’t really even a gauge for how good quality of life is. And, if he quality of life is bleak, would you want to put him through that? Should you put him through that? Is it moral to put him through that? If he was euthanized, he would never even know it. He would die after a relatively happy and pain-free life. That is the best end that a life can have, is it not? And, dogs do well after amputation but dogs are different animals – they lead a different lifestyle. They don’t climb very much, and they really care about the affection that human’s offer them 0 human affection makes them HAPPY. Cat’s often don’t need human affection as much as dogs do – they are a bit solitary, not pack-like. So, really, there is a limit to how much YOU, the owner, can do to make the cat happy after his loss.. and will that be enough?

For Amputation: Amputation is a catastrophic loss… for humans. Of course the loss of a limb will make life harder for anything – that’s sort of a given, but cat’s don’t think of their limbs the way that we do. In my opinion, he will not miss his missing arm – he well not wish that it could come back, and he will not mourn over the loss. As much as we project human emotions onto out pets, these just aren’t feelings that I think a cat can have. Now, cats absolutely have feelings, but I think that they are more basic and less past-future driven. I don’t think the cat will look back at what he had before versus what he has now. I don’t think that he can be angry with the world over his loss. I think that he can be frustrated at the sudden un-explained difficulty in doing the things he did so easily before, but as cats figure out how to do things a new way, they lose those feelings. I am still at a loss about how much amputee kitties can do – some people put “helper” items such as stools all over the house to help their kitties up and down, while others do absolutely nothing different to their house, and the cats are reported to do just fine. Some people don’t let their cat’s out after the amputation because they cannot protect themselves, while others let them roam free without issue. I think that there is a big difference in how owners approach the issue, and it reflects on how they feel their cat approaches the issue. And, of course, all we have is what people say, so it’s difficult to sift through. That’s why more experiences are better. After hearing and reading many stories about front leg amputees, I believe that they do not actually have such a difficult time getting around. I don’t think that it’s like normal, either, but I think it’s not too burdensome. That’s what I’ve gathered. The pain during recuperation cannot be avoided without euthanization – that is a personal choice that everyone must make, and it is a difficult one. Similarly, phantom pain may affect your kitty – and there’s not really much you can do. I don’t have a good answer for it. Then again, you can’t ever guarantee anything – I mean, at this point the cat is looking at either an amputation or death so obviously they’ve come to a point in their lives where they ran into some terribly bad luck. It happens to all cats and humans, and eventually we die of it, or suffer severe loss. So, there not being a guarantee is just another part of life.

As you can see, there’s not really a “right” answer here. For me, the things that really resonate are these two points:

(1) Fang trusts me, and I feel guilty for doing anything bad to him, but I have to do something and they’re both rather bad so there’s nothing I can do about it. So, just throw it off of your plate. There’s too much other stuff on it right now.

(2) If he was out in the wild and something chewed off his leg, or it was messed up in a trap, etc (these are true stories, believe me, I’ve heard them) he would still crawl back home. He wouldn’t just lie there and die. He would crawl back home and try to make things work with this new disability. So, if it comes down to it, and it was HIS choice – well I think he would choose to live. And I think that really matters.

Author: cldavis

I am a Sac State graduate with an International Business degree. I do consulting from home for Java programming, primarily in the Wicket framework. I have a wonderful fur-baby family, all with wonderful stories. Like with most cat-people, they're my kids. View all posts by cldavis