For pain she's been on Carpofen, Gabapentin and Tramadol.  I can't remember the dose of the Carpofen off the top of my head, but it's 1/2 a pill 2x/day.  The Gaba is 100 mg capsule 3x/day and the Tramadol is 100mg (2 50mg tabs) 3x/day "as needed" (according to the pill bottle and the instructions we went home with).  Her moods and anxiety have been so up and down it's really impossible to say whether the medication is having a causal effect (either good or bad).  My best guess is that her anxiety is a combination of a number of factors, the medication, the pain, and change.  The latter I am most convinced of.  Just about everything in her life was upended in the last week, after many years of a pretty consistent routine.  She feels different, she walks different, we treat her different (not trying to, but we do, we have to), mealtimes have been different, pills down her throat at all hours, I carry her up and down the stairs....

Anyway, we did call the vet last night and luckily they didn't ask us to bring her in, but issued a script for Trazadone for 7 days which I ran over and picked up right away.  And finally, about an hour after giving the Traz, she slept, and slept, and then slept some more.  It was a beautiful sight to see her finally relaxed, without her heart and breathing going a mile a minute, even if it was drug induced.  I could still wake her to go outside, and she'd eat and drink, but otherwise she was on her bed all night and through the morning today. 

So we're still day by day at this point with getting her anxiety under control.  But we are so very grateful that physically she is doing so well.  We joked (you have to, right?) that the hours of standing she did through her anxiety attacks was great strength conditioning for her three remaining legs. 

I was kind of bummed to see that my photos in my posts above are no longer being shared via Photobucket (apparently they now charge for third-party hosting?).  Anyway, I can't see how to go back and edit those posts, but let's see if I can re-share some of those photos.

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OK - that didn't work via my Google account so I'll see if there's another way to do it.

We said goodbye to Charlie Girl on January 22, 2019, a couple weeks shy of her 14th birthday. It was a very difficult time for us, as anyone can imagine who has gone through that awful experience. For a few weeks (maybe even months if I'm being honest) she had really just lost her spirit and every day was becoming more and more of a struggle. It was partly due to the amputation, but mostly due to old age. Her back legs weren't working very well and with only 1 front leg, she was having a hard time just getting up, let alone going outside. I can't even describe the torment we went through with this (Charlie was my wife's and my first dog, she saw us through marriage, moving cross country, the birth of our son who is now 9....). A month later, we're just now starting to feel better, less pain and more focus on the good memories, and thankful for the good life Charlie lived.

Anyway, cheers to everyone who goes through an amputation with their dog, as well as to those who make the hard decision that it's not the right option. I think we could have gone either way when facing this with Charlie at age 12, and it would have been the right decision. Charlie lived for almost 2  years after her amputation, and we are so grateful for that time with her, but it wasn't always smooth sailing for her or for us. Bottom line, love your dogs while you are able. And when it's time to say goodbye, celebrate the good life they lived.

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