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Tai has been with us for 20 months now and he is such a treasure. What a personality he is! He
loves people and his favourite treat is to have a trip in to the heart of Leicester city where he usually
gets a ton of fuss from all sorts of people. He adores the sights and sounds of the city, which totally
surprised us! He does have some favourite sighthound pals, mostly Greyhounds (we often walk with
the local Greyhound group) but he much prefers people to other dogs. He is very reactive to dogs he
doesn’t know but we have done a lot of training with this, and he is now a star with his clicker, and
we can walk in busy dog areas but as he is much more comfortable with less dog traffic, we tend to
keep to quieter routes. He is a star with training and is such a quick learner, something that is very
different from other Greyhounds we have had. He loves to learn new things which is great for a
disabled dog as he can’t walk or run as far as four legged and it keeps him happy. He is such a
loving boy, he is a delight and we often wonder at how well he has adapted to home life.
There is so much I could say about living with a tripawd but I will try to keep it brief! One of the first
things we did was take him to a physiotherapist for an assessment and to get some idea of how far
we could walk him safely and any exercises we could do to help him stay strong. This was
invaluable. One of the best things we did was take him to a Canine Clinical Massage Therapist, he
goes every 4 to 6 weeks and it’s an absolute gamechanger for him. He develops knots in his
muscles due to the abnormal gait of a tri (he is missing his rear left) and the massage addresses this
brilliantly. We build up Tais muscles for walking very slowly over about 6 months and we had an
amazing first year with him where he could easily manage hours walk and lots of zoomies, but he
sadly developed arthritis in his hip about 8 months ago. This was something we were expecting,
though hoping we might escape, its very common in tripawd for obvious reasons. With the help of
our vet, we manage this with medication and modified exercise. We also regularly use enrichment
food toys which he loves, and we are using our insurance to have hydrotherapy sessions for him . He
has good days and bad days and it can be a real roller coaster at first but he is still able to walk for
around 30 mins at a time unless he is in the middle of a flare up . GIN are very kindly helping us to
get him seen by one of the first Musculoskeletal Arthritis clinics in the UK which just happens to be
quite near to us. So watch this space! For anyone managing a dog with arthritis there is a brilliant
group called Canine Arthritis Management and they are so informative and helpful.
Tai is still relatively young at 7 and there is a lot we can do to manage his health so that he can live
his fullest life possible and pain free. He is still a happy loving confident boy and long may it
continue. He constantly surprises us with the amount of love he gives, what an inspiration he is.
These dogs are so amazing, after all they have been through.
There is so much more to say but not any more space
so please look at these photos instead. Please think
about sharing your home with one of these beautiful
souls, they are all very different personality wise, but
they all deserve the love and comfort of a sweet life
home. They give their all to us and its an honour to
give our all back to them. For any more information on
living with a three legged hound or managing arthritis
please contact GIN who will pass on your details to
me.
(I’m still learning but have learnt a lot so far) Sarah
You can follow Tai on Instagram-
tai_the_galgotri

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