Poor little Lopez was only a small kitten of about 3 months when he was found limping around a Plain City trailer park. A nice family was able to catch him and when he was taken to the vet, it was discovered that he was in pretty bad shape. His left front leg had been broken at the "elbow" and healed over. We are not sure if he was hit by a car or abused by a human. In any case, something else awful happened and he had a fresh break at his shoulder. The shoulder break was so bad that the vet decided the leg needed to come off.

Lopez became a three legged cat, but that didn't slow him down. After a short recovery period, he was running around as fast as cats with four legs. He found it great fun to climb to the top of the cat tree.

What we found the saddest, though, was Lopez does seem to have a “phantom” leg. Just as they say people do, Lopez still seems to think his leg is there. When he gets in the litter box, you can see his little shoulder blade moving as he thinks he is using his missing leg to scratch around. When he is unable to cover stuff up, he seems startled, and you see the shoulder blade moving as fast as can be again. The same thing occurs when he is playing. He tries to bat at a toy with his missing leg and you see his shoulder blade moving, but he seems surprised when the toy doesn't go anywhere.

Lopez was recently adopted by Heather, who works in the vet’s office where Lopez had his amputation performed.

We would like to thank everyone at Riverside Drive Animal Care Center for helping Lopez come through his surgery so well. We know that the whole time he was at the office, for the initial surgery, as well as follow up appointments, his feet never touched the ground. That is because everyone had to carry him all around, pressed against their hearts.

The best thing about Lopez is his purr. Before his surgery, he must have been in too much pain to purr. We never heard him purr at all. The vet techs said that as soon as his leg was removed, he began purring on the operating table. And he hasn't stopped since. It must have been such a relief to have that pain stopped.

We love Lopez, our three legged wonder!!!