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We just found out that our beautiful Maggie has bone cancer, and a full front leg amputation is an option. We have spoken to a few different vets and are getting different opinions. One concern is that she is 7 years old, but we are more concerned about her size, as she is an extremely large dog that weighs 190 pounds. She could lose a few, although, she is not obese.
One opinion is that a dog this size would have too difficult of a time trying to navigate on one leg and would not recommend the surgery, while another vet feels that although it would be a difficult recovery, that she could probably do fine.
We want to do everything that we can for her; however, we do not want to be selfish, and in our hope to have all the time we can with her, put her through even more misery than the cancer itself. We are facing a very difficult decision and would truly appreciate any input and information that anyone can offer.
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26 April 2007
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Hi Marla,
I'm so sorry about Maggie. This is a hard decision for any dog but especially when the pup is older or larger. But the best vets in the world have told us that neither size nor age should exclude a dog from being an amputation candidate as long as they are otherwise healthy.
Are any of these vets orthopedic surgeons? Typically when a vet immediately disqualifies a giant breed dog from amputation surgery, it's because they just don't see enough of them or do enough amputations to convince them that these dogs can and do just fine.
I agree that a giant breed amputation recovery can be challenging. Older and larger dogs need more time, and a bit more support than others during those initial weeks after surgery. What is her support team like? Will you have help to assist her if she needs it? Not all dogs will, but when a dog comes home from surgery they can be pretty woozy for a couple of days and need assistance getting in and out to go potty.
Also, how if your home set up? Do you have stairs? Slippery floors? Those things are also challenging to navigate with a larger dog.
Good pain management is also critical. It will make or break a recovery, so you really want a vet who does a lot of amputations and understands the importance of pain control at home.
There may be ups and downs but not every recovery has to be hard, and many bigger older dogs will surprise everyone with how well they recover.
Just check out some of our giant breed Tripawd stories for examples.
If you decide not to proceed with amputation, that's OK too, we will support you either way. There are other options like stereotactic radiation therapy to control pain, and when combined with bisphosponates (a bone building medication) it can also reduce the risk of fracture. Another new treatment called cementoplasty is a great option for dogs like Maggie.
I hope this helps. Stay tuned for feedback from others.
Hey Marla,
My Ellie is *only* 100 pounds, but is about 2 months post op for a forelimb and she's also 7 years old. She adjusted really well to 3 legs, but she wasn't magically 100% at 2 weeks. At 2 weeks was when I stopped hovering over her all the time and felt comfortable with the decision I made. I would say it took her about a month to get to her new normal.
Also highly suggest Physical Therapy, but I would have your first appointment as soon as you can. Ellie actually received therapy just hours after her operation and a couple more times over the 24 hours she was in the hospital, I'm convinced that alone helped greatly in her recovery. The fact she was as big as she was and already able to get up on her own was huge. With that said, booking physical therapy is kind of rough, they are usually booked out really far, so you might need to prepare well in advance (like 3-4 weeks in advance for me)
Jerry mentioned pain management and I couldn't agree more, it seems a lot of vets will stop pain management around 2 weeks, please make sure you have extra beyond that, as a large dog I can almost guarantee she will need it beyond that. Ellie was on Gabapentin for about 6 weeks. originally she was on 400 mg every 8 hours, and when I got a refill from my vet they gave me 100mg pills so I could slowly reduce her amount over time. That was really helpful, and alleviated a lot of stress for me. I did learn after that fact that gabapentin works well to stay ahead of the pain, so having it on a schedule works well, but not as a one off.
One thing that I don't see mentioned a lot on here is how people get their big dogs into their vehicles (seems like most just lift them, which isn't an option for all of us). Ellie was in a clinical trial and physical therapy so we were going to the vet sometimes twice a week. I was so very thankful I invested in a extended length ramp for her to get in and out of my SUV since there's no way I would have been able to lift her. I know people have mentioned dogs don't like them, but she took to it really easily, if you go that route highly suggest the extended length, it knocks the angle down quite a bit, to make it easier for the dogs to use. <a href="