Has anyone had a dog whose toe was amputated due to a cancerous or non-cancerous tumor? If so, please share which toe and how your dog is doing. I'm especially interested in hearing about the rear pinky toe.

Had a pup have her rear pinkie toe removed when she was a few days old. It got caught on the placenta & tore. Got infected & lost the bone so the vet amputated it.

At age 4 she is fine. Walks & runs normally. AKC even said I could show her, although she is in a pet home.

I don't know how much of a difference it would make on an older dog

My old Irish Setter had his rear two toes amputated at the age of 8 mos., the grand ole guy lived a great life to 13, never missed a step.

Friend's adult OEM had a back toe removed - took some time to heal but otherwise, doing just fine years later.

My parents' Lab had one of his rear toes amputated - I forget which one. He was about 8 when it happened. He recovered amazingly fast, didn't limp, and lived to age 13 1/2. He used to live with me in the winters when they went to Florida and I kept forgetting that he only had three toenails to grind on that foot - the hair grew in enough to where you didn't even notice.

Good luck with the surgery!

My old girl (will be 14 next month) had her right rear pinky toe removed about 3 years ago due to what turned out to be an aggressive infection. Cancer was suspected, but when the vet went to biopsy it, he found the bone had been eaten away so the toe was removed right then and there. Biopsy came back negative.

She had never really limped on it - the only sign we had was that she had started licking it and it was swollen. What slowing down we had seen we attributed to arthritis and old age in general, but from the moment she came out of anesthesia she was moving better and acting much happier.

One of my labs had to have a mast cell tumor removed last summer from a front outside toe. One vet had recommended removing the toe; another said he could probably remove the tumor and save the toe...I went with the second one!

While the healing process was difficult due to the location of the surgery and there not being a lot of tissue available to stitch together, we did get her healed, but it took about 3 weeks of limited, on-leash-only activity and a full leg cast to keep pressure off the toe. However, 9 months later, there's not even a limp or indication of a problem...I had been concerned that removing a whole toe might affect her gait; we were able to avoid that. I can't thank the vet enough.

Thank you all for sharing your positive experience. Wednesday is surgery day and now I feel much better. I would like to say that this is "another lesson learned". If you think something doesn't look normal it probably isn't normal and won't go away.

Hi Marjorie,


I have taken 2 toes off of my sister's Labrador for squamous cell carcinoma... the first one 2 years ago, the second one 6 months ago.One was a "pinky" toe on a rear leg, the other was toe #2 on a front leg. Both times she did great, and was actually more comfortable once the diseased toe was removed. The outer toes actually are better to lose than the middle ones.
Post op care is very important. Follow your vet's instructions on bandage care, etc.
Good luck, she'll do great, and think of it as one less toenail to cut!

We have an older chocolate girl here who started out to be a foster dog that we could not bear to part with 6+ years ago. She lost her front right pinky toe to melanoma July 2006. She is still with us and doing well. The recovery was short - less than 2 weeks. Ironically I had her in to Hutch's office for a fatty tumor biopsy and noticed a small calous like growth on the toe. Fatty tumor was just that - a fatty tumor but the toe issue was cancer.