Harley's story

Today marks day 4 since Harley’s amputation. I have to say first off he is doing very well. No draining, discharge, and the minimal swelling he had is now gone. He has some bruising, but what do you expect when a limb is cut off? He absolutely HATES being in his crate, but with 3 small children it is for his own safety. We let him out for short periods of time during the day, and then he gets to stay out for a few hours after they go to bed. He has been through so much already, I want to give him the best chance of healing before we let him loose. If any of you know anything about Shelties, you know first hand how much they love to run, especially in circles. He is a herder by nature and he constantly tries to herd the kids. Not easy when all 3 are constantly on the go in a million different directions. When he is out he amazes me at how well he does with 3 legs. Especially when I think that if he were a human, he would probably be in the hospital still hooked up to a morphine pump. I was so afraid that he wouldn’t be able to run his circle around the kids, but now it is obvious that losing a leg isn’t going to stop him from herding “his” kids. He lives for these kids and he isn’t going to let anything stop him from being their “protector”. Before the accident he would let us know where the kids were at all times. If one of them “strayed” away from the “herd” he would circle and bark , as if to let us know “we got a stray”. Whenever I sent videos of the kids to my mom, Harley would always make his circling appearance. She would laugh and say ” I saw my possum (her nickname for Harley) herding the kids”. I have gained so much more confidence in the past couple of days that he will still be able to do all the things he could before. In my first post I mentioned that Harley was already going up the stairs by himself, well yesterday he went down them by himself. We didn’t mean for him to, he and my son were standing at the front door, my son opened it and down he went. We are having a hard time deciding whether to let him go down by himself or wait until the stitches are out. He hates to be picked up, both because it seems to hurt him a little and I think he hates feeling helpless, but I would feel awful if he fell down the stairs and hurt himself anymore. Whether we choose to wait or not we are confident when the time comes to lose all these restriction he is going to do great!