Locomotion

One of the most surprising things since Bella's amputation is what a good runner she is with three legs. When you see her walk, it's obvious that she's missing a leg. She takes a step with each front paw, then does a big hop with her back leg. If you just saw her run, though, you would never notice her handicap. I swear she is every bit as fast as she was before, but I won't be letting her outside to test that theory!

We finally seem to be settling into a good feeding routine now. Before we added Bella to the mix, our two inside-only cats were on an all canned food diet with strict feeding times to help keep their weight under control. I want to make sure Bella is getting enough to eat, especially while she's healing, so that diet isn't going to work anymore. Right now we're keeping Iams Indoor Weight & Hairball Care available to everyone all the time, supplemented with canned food a couple of times a day. So far, so good, although we'll be keeping an eye on everyones' weight. You have to watch out for weight gain in tripods since they only have three legs to support themselves!

I've been trying to get a good picture of Bella standing up so that I'll have a shot of the tiny bit that is left of her leg from that angle. I haven't been able to accomplish it yet because as soon as she sees the camera, she starts posing. Instead, here's another picture of her back when she had four legs.