I know what a difficult decision this is to make, and I know how torn I was when faced with it.  The vet we are currently using for treatment is not the vet who diagnosed the osteosarcoma.  The diagnosing vet gave us options, but did not encourage us to pursue them.  The treating vet, very much encouraged amputation.  Why?  Because it is the only way to stop the pain.  The pain may not seem to be severe now, but as the disease progresses so does the pain.  I made the decision to amputate because I did not want to see Trouble drugged on pain killers for whatever time she had left.

The morning I dropped her off for the amputation, I drove to work wondering and praying I'd made the right decision. When we picked her up 2 days later, she was happy and able to get around on her own.  She needed a little assistance for about 3 days and from then on she is good to go.  Knowing what I know now, I'd make the decision again in a heartbeat.  For now she is cancer free and pain free.  As with any cancer, it can return but we will live each day to the fullest until that point.

I am a big advocate for the surgery, I feel like it gave us the time we've already had pain free.

Make decisions with your heart, based solely on the quality of life for Olivia.  One of Jerry's famous lines is 'there is no wrong decision'.  The point being not every circumstance is the same.

My question is whether anyone out there has similar experiences - - atypical tumor, in the elbow, and, most importantly, a dog who does not appear to be in excruciating pain.

Raises hand and waves. Yes, left elbow, 8 yr old Rottweiler. Background: Despite being diagnosed with bilateral elbow dysplasia at about a year old, he became asymptomatic (no limping) except for feet that turned out when standing at rest, and has had a very active life and great agility career. Timeline:

Aug 2008, turned up limping at a trial. Rest didn't ease the limp, so in Sept he had xrays showing fractured coronoid process and "joint mice" which are bone chips, basically.

Oct 23, ortho surgery to remove the bone chips, knowing that it only had maybe 50:50 chance of being successful. After consideration, took chance. It was not successful....had him in physical therapy, etc etc, but he didn't improve.

Jan 2009 he got worse. Back to vet, re-xrayed, saw a little bitty spot, needle biopsy to check for fungal infection and cancer. Biopsay came back negative for both. He got much worse, very quickly, and a decision had to be made. Still thinking it was an ortho issue, I made an appointment for Feb 9 (soonest I could) for an ortho consult hoping he would be a candidate for a TATE elbow prosthesis. Exhaustive research, second/third opinions and calling all over the country led me to believe this was probably the best option.

By the time we got to MSU, he was three legged and on Fentanyl patches. By that time he was wearing his tracking harness so I could help him get up, down, and around, when I thought he needed it. He never vocalised, whined, flinched, nothing, this whole time. Just was three legged and starting to act "depressed." It was awful because he is such a high drive, exuberant dog, to see him like this and I felt so helpless.  Dr DeJardin manipulated his leg and poked around and Cooper just stood rock solid still, no reaction except a low growl (which was more comment than threat.)

They xrayed and the tiny spot from 3 1/2 weeks prior was now a blurry grey mass almost obscuring the elbow and the bone was eaten away. They said cancer, but not osteo (they thought, hemaniosarcoma or synovial cell sarcoma, I think that's right) and also saw one spot on his left lung. After the amp the path report came back with a long complicated report but basically, osteosarcoma, clear lymph nodes (yay)....it's an atypical location for the tumor as you know, and given all the ortho stuff, this confounded the diagnosis.

This is not my first osteo dog and it took me about one nanosecond to decide on amputation. He was amputated on the 13th and was up and walking from day one.  Is he "cured"? No he is not. He is way low in energy, sleeps a lot and is starting to go off his food. I had his chest re-xrayed 3 weeks ago and ultrasound; the spot on his lung is unchanged so perhaps it's not cancer, and his organs looked good except for a little ambiguous something on his spleen. Bloodwork is all normal, heart and lungs sound good, no masses (I just had him and my other two dogs at the vet yesterday for the annual heartworm blood test and requested a blood panel and exam on Cooper.)

However he goes for short daily walks, plays sometimes, goes to the beach, wades around in the water, putters around in the park peeing on things, is alert, and not hurting.

Wow, there must be something therapeutic about being able to ramble on about his story! Anyway my bottom line: I would never hesitate to do an amputation again. Chances are the pain from the tumor will shortly become unmanageable and there is no medication strong enough. If Olivia is limping, she is hurting. And being a stoic girl, she is probably hurting badly. I think you are probably getting the best advice from your vet team, and I applaud your decision. I tell you, I just couldn't wait for Cooper's nasty old leg to come off, once I knew what the deal was! I'd been warned that the sight of him might be "upsetting" afterwards but phhhhtttt. I thought he looked beautiful with the painful leg gone.

One piece of advice (I don't know if somewhat copious drainage is more common with front leg amps) - if the vets put in a drain, you may see a lot of watery/bloody discharge. This is OK. As in, drips wherever Olvia walks, little puddles when she's lying down, drippage down onto her forechest where she can't clean herself. Old towels and sheets, and clean rags with antibiotic dish washing liquid or soap to keep her clean, and to protect her dog bed or wherever she's going to lay down and sleep.

I've probably rambled long enough LOL....here are pics of Cooper from 2 days post amp to recently. Somewhere I have a video of him running in a local park at six weeks post amp to the Flight of the Bumblebee. 😀 Best of luck to Olivia, and her mama too!

When the vets told us that Willy was in pain, we found it hard to believe. Sure he was limping, but he was also running around and playing, never crying or whining! But the xrays were pretty convincing that it was cancer. We strongly resisted the amputation because it seemed like mutilating our beautiful boy, but then we found this site! We are so very, very glad that we amputated that cancerous leg. Willy has recovered just fine (10 weeks post-amputation); he has no pain and is happily hopping on 3 legs. We even have some family members who were reluctant to come and visit, because they were afraid to see him in "this state". That whole attitude is so wrong. Dogs don't care. Dogs live in the moment and are so happy to be able to love us and play with us. We cherish every day with our boy and we are so grateful that this site gave us the courage to do what was clearly the right thing for us. You'll be able to ask questions about the process with Leah all along the way. There is so much support here. And as Jerry said: "there is no wrong decision". Good luck!