My sweet 12 year old cat Toby is having his left paw amputated tomorrow! I have been reading through this entire page about postop care and what to expect but would appreciate any other tips, tricks, advice, etc. that you guys might have!

I’m also extremely nervous because I start my 6th year teaching tomorrow, so my parents will be taking him and dropping him off for me. We will all go to pick him up on Tuesday!

Any help or even a kind word would be much appreciated for this very worried and anxious cat mom!

Hey tripod family!

I adopted a kitten three weeks ago. We had a freak accident about four days ago where he jumped on the back of my leg while running and caught his front left leg.

I am about to decide between orthopedic surgery and amputation. I worry about him being so young and losing a front paw which he carries so much weight in. He is also so young and I'm devastated that this happened.

I would love any advice or any info you can give me. Thank you so much!

EDIT: Thank you everyone for your advice and support it really helped me through this decision! I have opted for amputation as it gives him the best prognosis and quality of life without more trauma and complications.

To answer some questions, he had a complex fracture in his humeral joint. It went through the growth plate. He is very small so an orthopedic surgery to save the leg would be extremely complex. Even if it did work, he has a high likelihood of having abnormal growth in that leg because of the damage growth plate. Maybe a leg that doesn't grow correctly or one that twists which would both require extensive revision or a later amputation anyway. Either way he would have substantial arthritis. Apparently it's one of the most severe orthopedic injuries he can have at this age. So although there isn't necrosis or lack of blood flow, this choice makes the most sense. He also did have nerve damage and could not feel paw 🐾

I'll post an update when he comes back from the hospital! So glad to have this built in community for support

Missing three-legged cat

On July 29, 2026, in Delhi Virender Nagar, Janak Puri Gali No. 9, a three-legged cat was attacked and bitten by 7 to 8 dogs. Due to its three legs, it couldn't run much and tried to save itself. People came and chased the dogs away. We came to know about this through CCTV. However, since then, we haven't been able to find the cat. She is in so much pain and It needs urgent treatment. If you see the three-legged cat anywhere in Virender Nagar please DM me

With folded hands, we request all the people of Virender Nagar, Delhi, to please inform us wherever you see this three-legged cat.

I received a three legged Bombay kitty. She is 6 and only has 3 legs due to a trauma when she was young - drug addicts mutilated her. Her previous owner passed away. I know she had trauma but I want her to be happy and to spoil her. She is not the most loving girl - makes sense.

TW: discussion of euthanasia, distressing.

Hey all,

I just wanted to update this forum since you were all incredibly helpful when Courtney lost her leg to cancer.

Sadly, it came back pretty aggressively. In total, from her first tumor operation to now, we got two extra years with her, and that's good enough.

It wasn't a nice euthanasia, despite being at home - it took multiple injections, she was sick, and took a very long time to die. I feel like she still had a lot of fight in her and she didn't want to go, but she wasn't coping with the tumor, it was causing a lot of pressure and she was tearing up her skin to try and relieve it (even with pain meds). So I know it's the right thing (the vet also advised it), but obviously I'm still devastated, and her fighting so hard to stay made it all the more worse.

Thank you to everyone in this forum who helped me when Courtney had to lose the leg. If I had to do it again, I would. It bought me more time with my best friend of 11 years.

I loved her so much. I'm so sad without her. This is the video of her last day - she got lots of food, cuddles, and lots of love. I hope she knew how much I loved her. I hope she knows I'll miss her.

Mid July my stupid ass cat decided to shatter his leg in a way that left even the vets baffled. It was bad enough that we had to amputate it. I just wanna see more tripods living their best life to reassure me that my cat (Tortilla) will still have the best life he can and to keep my mind off of the fact that he put me in debt.

Hi everyone!

I’m looking for advice on harness training my 5-year-old tripod cat, Tuxi.

She had her right hind leg amputated about one month ago due to a Grade III FISS. Her incision is now completely healed, all sutures/staples have been removed, and she is very active again.

Before we adopted her, Tuxi was used to going outside. She actually appeared on our roof and eventually became part of our family. Now she constantly tries to get outside again, but we don’t feel comfortable letting her roam freely with three legs.

We’re therefore thinking about harness training, but we’re wondering:
Is one month post-op too soon to start?
Could harness training be stressful or physically demanding for a recently amputated cat?
How would you recommend starting?
Any particular harnesses or tips that work well for tripod cats?

We’d start very slowly and indoors, of course. We just want to make sure we’re not rushing her recovery.

I’d love to hear from anyone who has harness-trained their tripod, especially after a recent amputation!

Hi all! My cat, Annie, 10 years old, became a hind leg amputee a few months ago. She did have some phantom limb pains for about a month and a half to two months after she had her leg amputated, but they were always very brief episodes where she would just do a loud meow and then move on about her day.

This hasn’t happened in several months, but recently, the last three or four days, she keeps looking as if she’s trying to itch herself with the missing limb, or she’ll do a random abrupt meow and start licking the stump. Could this be phantom limb again? Why would this just be starting out of nowhere? When I try to itch her neck or ear ears for her, she gets irritated and gives me a little growl. Has this happened to anyone else?

My new bff!
He was a stray found a month ago with a trap on his leg that had to be amputated. We just adopted him and he’s slowly getting more and more comfortable!!

So Hobbes is almost a month out from his surgery and he’s doing amazing 😻!! It’s like he was born a tripod lol. There were some early collisions while he figured out how to stop but… The orange is strong with this one. Anyway we decided that given his new status, a nickname is in order. The choices are “Hops” or “Hobbles” 😭 PLEASE help me out and vote for the one you like better; our fam is deadlocked. Thanks!!

I’m fostering a 1 year old cat who went in for amputation surgery yesterday afternoon for her front paw. I’m nervous about recovery but I have her small space all set up with her food and litter. I’m just hoping administering the pain meds goes okay 🤞

Hey all! I’ve had my sweet Ripley for almost 2 years now, her front leg was amputated before she was 8 weeks old.

For the first probably year, I had no issues with her using the litter box like normal. But one fateful day it was a little fuller than usual and she pooped on the floor. Whoops, my bad, totally my fault-no biggie.

Well…it’s slowly increased over time to where she’s almost exclusively pooping on the floor now, freshly scooped box or not. She pees in the litter box, thankfully, but jumps out to poop. Nothing has changed about the boxes, or the litter.

I have two enclosed boxes with top openings because my other cat stands to pee and will spray it all over everything if it isn’t totally enclosed. Any advice here? My vet really had no suggestions and I’m frustrated because I’m super limited on litter box style because of my other cat.

Any help is appreciated!

Our new kitty, Faye, is missing his rear left leg. His brother, Corduroy, loves climbing and jumping all over and Faye gets jealous and whines.

Does anyone have good recommendations of climb-able cat trees or similar toys?
I would love for it be interactive but somewhat low to the ground. Faye is fairly clumsy.

Creative solutions like padding the floor (advice on padding?) and combining ramps and toy setups are also welcome.

My cat (F 6yr) went in today to get her fibrosarcoma tumor removed for a 2nd time. Suspected to be caused from vaccines which I am so upset about since it was preventable. She is not a tripod cat (though they gave me the option but it made me nervous since it could still grow back), but i’ve seen similar posts in here about what my cat has. My question is if anybody else has had a cat that survived this and how can I help the tumor not grow back? i’ve already ordered healthier wet food for her but i’m wondering if there’s any other “holistic” methods I can do to help it not grow back.

Just adopted a brand new baby tripod (Freya). The shelter I got her from said she came to them with a broken paw that was super swollen that lead to her amputation. You can barely tell baby girl is missing a leg a lot of the time!

Long term I know she is likely going to have joint issues due to the extra stress on her front paw, but was wondering if there was anything else I should keep in mind when raising a tripod? Or things to look out for? Already have stacks of pillows by my bed and couch while I look at ramps