Kermit had an adjustment period when we started to wean his meds down.  He was very enthusiastic about playing, but as far as walks were concerned, he'd hop 15 or 20 feet & just lay down, then I'd have to lure him another few feet with liver treats, and that would typically work until we were about 100 yards from the house, at which point he'd lay down for good & I'd have to hoist him up & CARRY him back up the hill to the house. 

Lowering the meds seemed to make him MORE awake but LESS excited about going anywhere.  But he was never a 5-miles-a-day kinda guy anyway.

Now if I want him to get a really good walk in we have to go somewhere exciting... which is pretty much anywhere other than out of our own house!

Have you made an med adjustments along the way?

With Kermie's arthritis we still haven't stopped the tramadol entirely- he still gets 1 in the morning & 1 at night.  The vet gave us a script for 270 of them with 3 refills, so either a) she thinks he's going to have quite a bit of pain, or b) she thinks he's going to live a lot longer than the statistics would suggest!  I'm going with b...  

...but the point is that you might want to ask about giving her a small dose daily or at least more than "for emergencies" if she has any other issues that might be making her just sore enough to not feel like going out walking but not sore enough to cause any severe problems. (maybe 1/2 or 1 in the morning?)

I know a lot of people like to keep the meds to a minimum, but we ARE playing a timing game here, so I think maintaining an excellent quality of life is more important in most cancer cases than most potential long-term side effects.

Thanks for the post Mica. Very strange as I was perusing posts today and was going to post a new thread asking the same questions as you.  

Tahoe is now 5 weeks post amp, no meds, and in his third week post Chemo treatment #1. Next chemo treatment is scheduled for this Friday, barring low WBC counts.

Like Roxy, Tahoe was quite anxious and wanted to hop and run around about 2 weeks post amp, we were doing short daily walks and he was fine. The last few days, we get the harness on, head onto the road and he puts the 3-legged brakes on. Nope...not going anywhere. So, we turn back to the house.

As for other activity, he does assisted stair climbing maybe 2-3 times/day, runs around the backyard but that is about it.

The only other change has been the addition of Homeopathic treatments which were started 3 days ago but this does not coincide with the stopping of the walks. Not quite sure what to make of this,as he has been the 'model' tripawd to-date.

Any additional thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Stirling and Tahoe