Cheyenne the three-legged dog
Cheyenne
went through a lot before coming here, but now she revels
in her new life at the ranch. Here's her story:
It was the day before Christmas Eve 2003 when a rescue group in Browning, Montana, contacted us about an injured dog that needed immediate help. The dog's right front leg had been chopped in half. Despite the wound, the dog had been left in an animal control shelter for days with no medical care and no pain medication.
We met the rescue group at dawn on Christmas Eve, at a remote spot along the Rocky Mountain Front named Bowman's Corner.
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The dog, a female Border Collie mix, was in desperate shape. The stump of her leg had swollen to three times normal size from infection. It was so far gone that the dog couldn't even feel the wound any longer … it was numb to the touch.
We put the dog in our truck and raced her to our vets in Helena. They think she had been caught in a leg-hold trap. The injury was weeks old.
Our vets couldn't amputate what was left of her leg on Christmas Eve because the infection was too widespread. So first they brought the infection under control and a few days later they operated. Just before New Year's Day, she came home to the sanctuary.
We named this three-legged girl Cheyenne.
We could tell she had not enjoyed a good life. She was bone thin - weighing all of 23 pounds - and she was used to scavenging for her meals. We're not sure she had ever been indoors.
But soon Cheyenne more than made up for it.
We were out doing barn chores one evening when we saw a dark shape streaking towards us. It was Cheyenne. She had learned to squeeze herself through the six-inch squares in the sheep fencing around the dog paddock. Losing a front leg made this trick possible. She just wanted to be with us. From then on, Cheyenne has joined us for barn chores. (Not that she actually does any.…)
Now she wanders from the dog paddock to the house and back again whenever she chooses, right through the fence. The other dogs still don't understand how she does it. Sometimes she'll run up and down the fenceline, taunting the dogs on the other side, barking at them. She seems to be saying, "I'm free and you're not!" It drives them nuts. She loves it.
Cheyenne does not think being three-legged is a disability,
because she only needs two legs to stand up and take food
off the kitchen table. She also points out that she still
has one more leg than we have. (She is sassy.)
Cheyenne is a sweet, free-spirited girl who is everybody's
friend. She may have gone through an ordeal, but now she's
Queen of the Ranch. And she knows it.
