Roe was born with a deformed right front paw that was non-functional. He had a bunny-like gait as he could put no weight on his right front paw. Roe was scheduled to be euthanized. Our neighbor decided to adopt him to save him. They took him to the vet to have his front leg removed up to the shoulder blade.
I wondered how coordinated he would be with only three legs. During the summer he spent a fair amount of time using our pool. Yes he was still the neighbor’s dog; he just liked to visit a lot.
Our Golden Retrievers, Leah and Ruby, were not really keen on Roe’s visits at first, but they did grow to tolerate him. For the first year of his life he was back and forth from the neighbors to our house.
Our yard quickly became the neighborhood dog park. Boon in front, Leah above him, Ruby to the right and Roe’s partial head making an appearance.
Every morning we would awake to Roe either jumping up or putting his paw on the glass kitchen door begging to come in or he would be lying in the previously unused bed we had gotten for the girls. After a year and a half of this, during one nightly pickup, the neighbor asked if we would even consider the possibility of keeping Roe full time. Roe seemed really happy at the turn of events.
With Roe now a permanent part of the family we started to take him places and started to realize that his disability wasn’t a disability at all. He played tug like all dogs do.
He had no issues swimming; I ridiculously thought he might just go in circles. My wife saw an episode of the dog whisperer where he had a camp with a “splash super pool” so we of course got one for the dogs. They do also enjoy jumping in our pond, so a fight with algae ensued.
We took him to the beach where he was supposed to be on leash but we found a few locations where he could really cut loose in the sand and have a great time off of it. He always comes when called and loves everyone he meets.
With three dogs come three times the problems, not enough window space being one among many. Ruby and Roe really did start to bond.
Ruby became Roe’s sleeping buddy, as she is by far the best sleeper in the house, besides the occasional wild and vocal dreaming. Neither of them are early risers they leave the task of waking the whole house up at 5am to Leah.
Roe seems to really like new experiences and so we have tried to give him as many as possible, and so far we have found no limitations to his new form. His very first time in the snow turned into a wild show with him flinging himself all around the yard and nipping at the snowflakes.
I’d say all in all, he is no different than any other dog and his smiling face tells you everything you need to know about being a dog with only three legs. I hope this post helps someone who is contemplating putting a dog down for a deformity into considering that a disability is only a disability if you label it as such. For that matter I hope anyone out there with any form of physical challenge looks to Roe as an example of how we all should treat challenges in life. He is just happy to be alive and experience all the wonders life gives us each and every day.
