Thanks everyone. I do realize it's only been a few  weeks but she was doing so well so fat that I guess I thought she'd be running around the block by now. I will check into PT for her. I've always heated it myself, but it might help her.

OK, so I know we've "graduated" from this forum, but this info might help someone who is just starting this. I promise this will be our last post here. Right after I last posted, I noticed Maggie really going downhill. She could barely walk and was literally pretending to pee. I'd get her out for potty and she would squat, but do nothing. This went on for a couple of days. I played golf on the 13th and told my buddies I didn't think Maggie would make it to the weekend. That day I came home and there was a note from my wife that said she couldn't get Maggie out for potty that morning. I tried to get her out, she could just barely make it outside, and once again PRETENDED to pee, as if trying to make me happy. I called the vet and took her in. By this time, my wife was home and I made it a point to tell her that I WAS bringing Maggie home. I knew she thought we were losing her too.  

We get to the vet and they say they're going to try to get her to pee. I didn't think much of this, but what? Maggie goes out and pees! And they collected a sample to do a urinalysis. So, then in talking to the vet, she casually asked me what meds Maggie was still on. Meds? We're done with meds. Apparently, Maggie should STILL have been on Carprofen. Of course, I felt like an idiot, but no one told me to continue her on the drugs. I took Maggie home and started her on the medication.  By the weekend, Maggie was getting more and more normal. The urinalysis came back normal as well. Today, she is getting around like a 3-legged champ. Her happy howls have returned. She's eating like before the surgery. Where I was having to coax her out for potty, she's now going out on her own again and there's no more pretending to pee. She still has to wear her socks in the house, but I get her out front every day where she loves to watch things and she gets a break from having the socks on for a couple of hours. I have stocked up on Carprofen from on-line sellers and will never make that mistake again!

I see it's been 2 months since I last posted. Terribly sad to report that we lost Maggie 2 nights ago. But it wasn't due to her cancer, I'm sure, and I'm eternally grateful for all the information I got from this great site.

Maggie had been progressing incredibly well since I last posted. She had started doing things she hadn't done since before her surgery. She was actually letting me know she was ready to resume our walks, although she was nowhere close to being ready for that. She started wanting to go for rides in the car again, although she couldn't navigate her ramp on three legs and had to ride in my back seat as opposed to the cargo area. She was extremely happy and pain-free and had been doing her "happy howls" not only for us but for all her friends and neighbors. We live on a cul-de-sac and my next-door neighbor has a huge sycamore tree in their front yard. Maggie absolutely loved  hanging out under that tree and I made it a point to take her out front every day for 2,3, sometimes 4 hours. I'd sit and read or just putter around in the garage and she enjoyed watching things, greeting neighbors and really liked to get her socks off for those few hours.

My elderly mom hadn't seen Maggie since she became a tripawd. I decided to go get mom at her assisted-living facility and bring her out for dinner last Thursday. We had a great dinner and great time. Maggie was her usual silly, happy self. We had ice cream for dessert and mom didn't finish hers. I gave it to Maggie. I had given her ice cream before but not very often. Anyway, after I got back home from returning mom, Maggie was lying in the kitchen by herself as opposed to being with my wife or waiting by the front door for me. I didn't think anything of this until much later. I mentioned to Robin (my wife) to make sure I got Maggie out for potty before she (Robiin)  went to bed. The usual routine is Robin goes to bed quite early (7:30-8:00) and Maggie hangs with me for a while before SHE'S ready to go into our room. I then go outside with Maggie and she does her business for bedtime. I just like to make sure Maggie makes it OK,,,sometimes she needs a little help getting up.  Once she's finished, I walk with her into our room and Maggie settles in for the night next to our bed. Well, before I knew it, Maggie had already gone into our room with Robin. Maggie hadn't been out for a number of hours, so I got her up and made her go outside. She did so with no problem whatsoever

About a half hour later, however, Robin came and told me something was wrong with Maggie. She was trying to vomit but nothing was coming up and she was salivating terribly. She was very restless and finally vomited something that LOOKED like vanilla ice cream. All I could think was that I had given her the ice cream (with a very, very little bit of chocolate) and that I had poisoned my dog. As it was after hours, I called an emergency vet clinic and the person on the phone reassured me that a tiny bit of what she had had wouldn't harm a 160 pound dog. By this time, Maggie was calming down, though still somewhat restless, and stopped the trying-to-vomit thing. She laid back down next to my bed. I also went to bed and kept an eye on her. She seemed to be fine, and I went to sleep. That was about 10:30. At 2:00 a.m., Robin woke me up, saying that something was wrong. Maggie had stopped breathing and had been gone for a little while. All I could think was ICE CREAM! I couldn't believe I had done that! Somewhere in the next agonizing minutes or hours, I remembered something about BLOAT. Having had a few big dogs and always getting the books about the particular breed, I remember reading about bloat but it had never occurred to any of my dogs, and never gave it a thought during Maggie's ordeal. I started doing more research and am now convinced this is what happened to Maggie and it could have probably been prevented.

I now know that bloat is the #2 cause of death in dogs, following cancer. Reading about how to avoid bloat is pretty much reading about everything we were doing wrong, and Maggie's symptoms were text-book indications of bloat. Big dogs, they say, shouldn't eat one big meal a day (as Maggie did all her life) and they shouldn't follow their big meal with a big drink of water. Again, this is what Maggie did every single day. I think what ultimately was particularly harmful in Maggie's case is that since her surgery, she ate lying down. Then drank lying down, and usually had a nap afterward. She had tried to eat standing up a couple of times, but, I guess she just couldn't stand for that long. I wish I had known more about bloat than I did before. I may have made some changes and this is the reason for my telling this long story. Forgive me, but if someone is going through this bone cancer as we were, perhaps being aware of bloat could help. I'm certainly not a vet and I haven't consulted any vets about this, but it all makes sense to me now. (Interestingly, the officer from animal control who responded to my phone call the other night had a similar incident with HER mastiff who also died from bloat).

While I will forever miss my sweet big girl, part of me is perhaps glad that I DIDN'T recognize what was happening to Maggie. The info I got says bloat is fatal 95% of the time. A dog needs to be rushed into surgery to save its life. Many don't make it long enough to GET to surgery and many don't survive the surgery. Perhaps if I knew more, I would have rushed Maggie to an emergency vet and then would have been faced with making a very hard decision. Maggie went through so many surgeries and the thought of her re-habbing on 3 legs, at nearly 11 years old, well, it would have been a tough call to make.

Again, I want to thank everyone involved with this site. I figure I received about three extra months with Maggie, they were happy months (as were the other 10 years with her) and I think we could have had more if we had made a few small changes.