Hello everyone,

I am curious if anyone has gone through a similar situation to what we are currently dealing with.

Bracey, our 13yr old female Golden Retriever, was diagnosed with osteosarcoma and had her left hind leg amputated on Aug 9. Prior to amputation she was totally lame in the affected leg, thus was using it very little, if at all. Most of the time she was hopping along on three legs, so even though she is a senior we moved forward with amputation to give her the best quality of life. 

We learned that she also had a partial ACL tear in her good back leg, but even so all the vets we saw recommended the amputation. I was always worried that her remaining back leg would not be strong enough to handle its new solo role. While a ACL surgery was considered in tandem with the amputation - the advise was not to do all this at once, and the recovery would be too difficult. 

Bracey did really well with the amputation, once the opioids wore off she was regaining some pep and wanting to go for very very short walks. Unfortunately we do live on the second floor so she has to go up and down stairs to go outside, but she was doing great with that with the aid of the sling. This past week by Wednesday she was doing great, but the next day didn't want to get up or go outside much at all. I have to lift her up to get her going - whereas before she was getting up and moving around all on her own. She has slipped a few times, but there isn't one incident I can point to where she may have further hurt her back leg.

She eats and goes potty really well. No problems there.

I am concerned that she has further injured her ACL on remaining back leg, which would be a real blow to recovery -  and another procedure I do not want to put her through. 

She is on Gabapentin only for pain (the NSAIDs raised her liver enzymes so she can not be on them, and tramadol makes her miserable). She has been on turmeric for a while now - as well as supplements for her joints and immunity (CBD, mushroom powders, turmeric curcumin with glucosamine and MSM). She gets homemade food from Farmers Dog with her kibble and a nice amount of bone broth. 

She is extremely stoic about pain - so the only indication I have that she may be in pain is that she no longer wants to go outside or even get off her bed.

She has an appt early this week for recheck so we will see the vet then to get some actual answers. 

My main question is if anyone has gone through this with a senior dog whose remaining limb was not strong, or experienced an ACL tear post amputation? All the docs thought she was strong enough to handle this, but now I am having serious doubts. 

Not being able to get around at all is no quality of life for her, and its really concerning that she had improved so much and now seems to have taken a turn for the worse.

Thanks for any advice or experience you may have to offer,

Jessica