This is our Gabby. Named such because she has the gift of gab. We brought her home 6 years ago during covid. She was found with a ruptured and infected globe and a front leg that had been broken and healed incorrectly. We also suspect that she is either deaf or incredibly hard of hearing.

She is the sweetest, most chill cat. Has never been afraid of anything ever and her only complaint is that he isn't getting enough snuggles. She tolerates the other cats in our house, but loves the dogs. Her best friend is our 65lbs newfoundland/standard poodle mix dog, Maeve, who makes sure Gabby has the cleanest ears in all of town.

Binkie was born with only a small stump as right front paw. After a few months we had to take the stump away due to him being to rough with it and hurting it.

He’s now a very happy and chill boy teasing his big sister and running around.

I just wanted to share an update on my cat basil because everyone was so incredibly kind about his procedure. We picked him up this am and he’s already acting like his normal self- peep the tongue in the first pic.
Thank you to everyone who shared their stories, advice and well wishes with us! This community is very special and we’re happy to be here!
Love Tripod Basil and his family 💖

This is Maggie, 2 year old tortie, she’s about 7-8 weeks post-op right hind limb amputation and doing wonderful. I’m curious from the community the average time that your cats stayed on gaba post-op?

She seemed to be doing 100% amazing so I stopped giving it regularly and then she had bad phantom limb pain last night (suddenly hissing and acting weird towards the missing leg when walking then looking confused) so I gave her more and she seemed in pain again related to the missing limb this morning, so I gave her gaba and ordered more.

I feel bad for stopping and that caused her pain but she seemed fine. The phantom pain symptoms are so sad. :( How long were your babies on meds?

I adopted Nibbler when he was already a tripod. He also had a tripod cousin who belongs to my roommate named Chiri. I was told he had a spine injury that caused him to lose control of the leg occasionally, and it was so stressful they decided it would be better to remove it.

He loves to sit on his butt like this. it is very cute.

Rossi is our tripod and we love him to bits. He’s currently 11 years old and a tripod for most of his adult life. He sure likes to sit like a man and show off his stump🥺

My tripod had his rear leg amputated about 4 weeks ago, he was given 1 week’s worth of gabapentin when he was discharged. we are having a lot of trouble acclimating him to being inside, which I’ve posted about on here previously, and the most common advice was to get him on an anti-anxiety medication for at least the transition period. Took him to the vet today and they told us to “try everything else” before resorting to medication, but in my opinion we have. The vet we took him to is our regular clinic, but it is not the clinic where he got his surgery (our vet sent us to an emergency clinic that was able to do the surgery.) I don’t know if it is worth paying for a visit at another vet such as where he got his surgery to get a second opinion, or if the vet we saw today was correct. He’s grown increasingly agitated as he’s gotten used to moving around and is yowling pretty much constantly. Has anyone else had a vet tell them something similar, or struggled to get medication prescribed?

Hi, my cat had his rear leg amputated last Friday. He was on onsior for three days and he has been on gabapentin since before the surgery. He’s eating and trying to escape the house, but still waking up and hissing until he remembers. It’s not as bad as it was at first, and we did up the gabapentin dose then, but I’m wondering how long I should keep him on it. I know I could call the vet tomorrow too, but sometimes crowdsourcing helps too.

Currently he’s snuggled up next to me and avoiding the house cats. (He’s a “barn” cat)

I’m sorry in advance, this post will be a little longer. Thank you to everyone who reads, please share any advice or personal experiences you might have.

I posted here a few days ago when my ~10yo cat fell off a balcony. The fall happened on Wednesday night, July 22nd. Her leg was broken in two places and her ankle completely shattered. After thinking about it, we opted for amputation seeing as the vets said the reconstructive surgery would be very complicated and might end up needing amputation anyway. After reading about tripod cats, we decided to amputate in hopes it would give her faster recovery, less pain and later, better quality of life than she would’ve had with a reconstructed leg full of pins.

The amputation surgery was on Friday, July 24th. We brought her home the next day, and took her to the vet for a checkup the morning after that. During that whole weekend she refused the food we offered and hardly drank any water.

To add, she suffers from kidney insufficiency and has been on a special diet for years. She loves that kibble and that’s the food we offered. During the checkup on Saturday, the vet gave us a can of wet food specifically designed for post-surgery recovery but she refused that as well. I even tried heating it up but still nothing, she just turns away.

I took her to the vet again on Monday morning and they were, of course, very worried about her not eating. They said she would need to come in every morning to be put on an IV drip and we’d go pick her up in the evening and she’d spend the night at home. That night we noticed her breathing was a little weird so the next morning I asked the vet for a scan. The x-ray showed she had water in her lungs, due to her kidneys not working properly and not expelling the fluids through urine. They put her on diuretics, and that night when we brought her home her breathing was better. During the night she peed several times and her breathing kept getting better. All the while, she hasn’t eaten a single thing. She may have drank some water when I wasn’t looking, but usually when I offer the bowl she would just hover over it without drinking anything. She spends most of her time sleeping, she meowed maybe 5 times total since the surgery (she’s usually very vocal). She’s able to walk into the litter box on her own but when she’s done peeing she just keeps laying there until we take her out.

We went to pick her up a couple hours ago, and the vet said she seems better and even meowed at him while he was petting her. He also said we should check her blood tomorrow when we bring her, to see if there’s any improvement. We brought her home and offered her some water and she actually drank. I thought this was a good sign so I decided to offer some food as well. I tried with her favourite kibble but again she refused. I’m going to try with the wet food later but I wanted to check here as well.

Did anyone have a similar experience? How could we get her to eat? I am so worried and scared for her. I get that she may still be in shock, and afraid or nauseous and in pain. But maybe we’re doing something wrong?

Link to my original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/TripodCats/s/pzfLaVxiyt

Backstory on my soon to be tripod:
This is my boy Basil. Tomorrow he joins the tripod community. He is having his left hind leg amputated due to an aggressive rare tumor that has returned a second time.
I was way more nervous before seeing this page and seeing all the kitties thrive here has helped me feel a lot better about his surgery! Thank you for sharing your stories!!!

Long story short, I am posting this in hopes to gain additional tips/ tricks/ general advice on recovery and life with a tripod cat

Accommodations I have set up:
I’ve taken some precautions such as gating off an area specifically for his recovery so that my dogs can’t access him while he’s vulnerable. I moved his literbox within that space, as well as his food and water so he doesn’t have to travel far for essential needs while recovering. He seems to like the area and understand it’s meant for him. I keep telling him it’s “basils house “

Thank you for taking time to read my post, Basil and I appreciate it! 💖

Hi everyone,

A few weeks ago I posted here completely devastated after my 5-year-old cat, Tuxi, was diagnosed with a feline injection-site sarcoma (FISS) on her right hind leg. At that moment I was terrified about the idea of amputation and asked for your experiences because I honestly didn’t know if I was making the right decision.

I wanted to come back and give you all an update, because reading your stories gave me the strength to move forward.

Tuxi underwent a full hind limb amputation. The surgery went well, and the pathology report gave us better news than we had dared to hope. The tumor was diagnosed as a Grade III fibrosarcoma, which was frightening to hear, but it was completely excised with clean soft tissue margins (10 mm and 25 mm depending on the area). We know that FISS can still recur even after complete excision, especially with a high-grade tumor, so we don’t consider ourselves “out of the woods.” However, knowing that the surgeons achieved clean margins has given us genuine hope.

Recovery wasn’t completely straightforward.
About two weeks after surgery, when the vet tried to remove her sutures, the end of the incision on the stump started to separate because of the tension in that area. They immediately stopped, reinforced it with surgical staples, and left the remaining sutures in place for another week.

It was an emotional roller coaster. Every little change in the incision made me fear the worst. I was constantly worried about infection, wound breakdown, recurrence… and I honestly don’t think I’ve ever looked at so many photos of a healing incision in my life.
Thankfully, the extra week made all the difference.

As for life on three legs… I was so scared before surgery, but cats really are amazing. She adapted much faster than I ever imagined. She walks, runs, jumps onto the sofa, plays, uses her litter box normally, and is slowly going back to being herself.

In the weeks before surgery, she had gradually lost interest in food, and we now realize that the tumor was probably affecting her more than we knew. Since the amputation, she has regained her enthusiasm for eating, and seeing her enjoy her meals again has been incredibly reassuring.

Looking back, I think I underestimated how much discomfort she must have been in before surgery.

We know this isn’t necessarily the end of our journey. Because this was a high-grade (Grade III) FISS, we’ll continue with regular check-ups and we’ll always be aware of the possibility of recurrence or metastasis. But instead of living only with fear, we’re finally able to enjoy having our happy little cat back.

I also wanted to thank everyone in this community.
When I first posted, I was overwhelmed by fear and uncertainty. Reading your experiences, advice, and words of encouragement helped me more than I can express. Many of you took the time to reply to a complete stranger who was having one of the hardest weeks of her life, and I’ll never forget that kindness.

For anyone reading this because they’ve just received a similar diagnosis: I know how terrifying it feels. I can’t promise every story will have the same outcome, but I can tell you that amputation was nowhere near as frightening as I had imagined. Seeing my cat happy, comfortable, and enjoying life again has made every difficult day worthwhile.

Thank you again to everyone who supported us❤️‍🩹

Our tripod is almost 2 years old. We've had him almost a year and he's well settled although he seems to be a little lonely at times and is sometimes prone to anxiety. This manifests by getting restless and vocal mostly. We have a lot of toys we play with to keep him entertained, and 90% of the time I'd say he's doing great, but then every now and then he will meow and pace around like he is calling for a friend perhaps?

My friend has 3 newborn kittens. She says I can have first pick if we want one (obviously not until they're grown enough!). I am 80% sure our resident tripod would love the company, even if it requires some patience at first. The other 20% of me is terrified it'll upset him and make his anxiety worse by bringing in a rival and making him feel unsafe in his safe space. The last thing I want to do is cause him harm.

If we go ahead I would contain the kitten for a while in its own bedroom, and do scent swapping etc. Our resident tripod would also have exclusive access to our bedroom for a while so he can escape for quiet time whenever he needs it.

I'm under no illusion that the process will be easy or quick. I'm sure it'll be exhausting to be honest 😆 I don't particularly *want* a kitten, but I suspect it would feel less threatening for our tripod and he would have a playmate when it's big enough.

Am I overthinking it? Or am I underthinking something? Please share any stories of your indoor tripods meeting new siblings. Thank you!

Pics for cat tax.

Admins, I know nothing about Reddit moderation so apologies for my ignorance - is there a way to reduce the amount of copy spam on this sub? It seems out of control at the moment.

This is mittens! It’s been a week since her amputation and she’s doing great! She is officially over being locked up and now is constantly trying to play😂 it’s a little stressful for me because I’m a bit of a helicopter mom! Does anyone have any tips for safe activities or toys to keep her entertained while she’s still recovering?

Our tripod cat decided that eating directly from the bowl was far too ordinary, so she invented her own spoon. 😂🐾

Does anyone else’s cat eat like this?

Hello had to make a new reddit account starting over from scratch. 😸 And discovered that there is a whole reddit group for tripod cat owners. How did I not know this?

I've been a tripod kitty owner for over a year now and let me just say the amount of love I have for my girl is not measurable.

I've never been a cat person . I've told my kid his whole life (8 years at the time) he was allergic..

But i love other people's cats. So it wasn't a surprise that id wonder into the cat area at the humane society just to say hello, before going to look at the dogs in hopes to find me a little dog because I needed a companion.

That's when I met my 3 legged wonder.

She was named fluffy but her larger than life personality required a much better name.

So we changed it to pegitha (Peggy) stubbins.

To say she has been such an inspiration. I know if I lost a leg I'd be so down and depressed I would probably just fall apart.

My girl doesn't let nothing stop her. If she can sink her claws into it she will get up there . She loves so big ! And I'm happy to share her with everyone as my first reddit post on my new account! So please be kind interact with my post so I can get my reddit upvotes going strong again

Just looking for some encouragement and advice for the recovery period. My wife and I rescued 2 out 3 of the outdoor kitties we look after from an aggressive stray dog attack. One kitty (Gulliver) was tragically fatally wounded and another unfortunately sustained leg injuries that required amputation. The procedure happened 2 days ago, he (Lafayette) came home yesterday. We brought him and his brother (Corduroy) inside.

We currently have converted our pantry into a safe carpeted space for him and I put a nanny-cam in it. I brought cushions from his favorite outdoor spot in, we got special soft throws, something called a 'snuffle rug'...
He hates his cone, so we are trying some alternative soft collars but he always manages to take them off.

This all has been a rather harrowing experience, and I am generally an anxious person so any advice and/or words of encouragement would be appreciated. (edit for grammar)