Thanks for the welcome. I am so glad our oncologist told us about this group. It has been really helpful and calming to poke around and see that other people have the same questions and confusions I do, and that other pets have responded similarly as Maddie. 

Sally asked for pictures of Maddie -- twist my arm! I'd love to show her off. 🙂

This is Maddie about a week before her surgery. You can see the lump on her front left leg.

Day after the surgery -- this was bringing her home from the hospital

Her incision two days after the surgery.

Sorting out her ramp.

And for fun, here she is being a big goofball earlier this summer. 

I can also share her leg xrays from about two weeks before surgery if people are interested.

I too was impressed at how quickly she sorted out the ramp. Although still a few kinks to sort out. This weekend she was so desperate to pee that she made it halfway down the ramp and then peed on it. *eyeroll* Silly dog.

The results of the biopsy of the removed leg came back on Friday and we received confirmation of osteosarcoma. Next step is to see the oncologist again and likely start up chemo. (If there are other treatments people would recommend that we should be asking our oncologist about, I'd love to hear it.) I'm anxious to decide on our next step and to get started on whatever that is, but am also aware that this needs to be on Maddie's timetable given her recovery status. 

Much of recovery have gone faster than I would have expected. Her incision continues to look good -- she should have her sutures removed this week. The seroma has all but gone now -- I think the heat pad in her crate ended up working well. Her pain signs have decreased, and we have cut back the tramadole again. Not only did her pain seem better, but we started seeing signs of stress/anxiety about an hour after giving her mediations so the surgeon suggested pulling that back a bit, which seems to have helped.

She is getting more comfortable moving, although she still isn't interested in moving much yet. But there are little glimmers that her normal personality is coming back despite the big life adjustment. She nosed at a toy. She got to see a couple of her favorite people, and she was full of tail wags for them. She has come over and demanded butt scratches. She woofed at someone walking by the house. They seem small, but when I think back to just a week ago, it's huge.

Here are the two xrays of her leg. I found them fascinating (and horrifying!).

Maddie continues to make good progress post-surgery. She has started doing her old normal behaviors again, like coming to say hello when we come up, squeaking her toys at random times, etc. We have been going on short walks around the block and she has even asked to go for walks a couple times. Her interest in trying to chase squirrels and crows has returned, as has her stubbornness.

Watching her walk is so cute. She is sorting out her new gait, and watching her ears flip-flop is just about the most adorable thing I've seen. https://i.imgur.....m2O5Oz.mp4

She has been going up and down our stairs for the last week. After her surgery, we kept our stairs blocked until she could recover a bit, gain some strength, and have a chance to try a smaller flight of stairs. That was the plan, anyway.  Her favorite cozy spots are downstairs, so she was not pleased with us making her stay upstairs. I would sometimes come to the stairs and find her standing there looking at me. "Excuse me, lady. I'm supposed to go down there now."

Maddie had other ideas and did not agree with our plan. She managed to have her first effort at our stairs on her own, without us to make sure she ready and didn't hurt herself. There was a ten minute period where we were outside and thought the stairs were blocked. When I came back in, I found Maddie standing in the kitchen, right where I had left her. A couple hours later I went downstairs to find a wet spot where she was grooming herself. The stubborn big-red-doberdufus somehow managed to figure out going downstairs the first time, lay on her spot long enough to lick and make a wet spot, and then get back upstairs without me having any idea it had happened. She was clearly feeling better...

Despite her, we decided we still wanted to limit her access for a few days to times we were around to make sure she didn't hurt herself. The next day we let her down -- again she did it without any real problem.

And now she handles it like a boss: https://i.imgur.....cueE.mp4 

All-in-all she is acting very normal now, just with one fewer leg. The only major change we have noticed is that she has started licking her bed or bedding while laying down. I'm not sure if it is self-soothing, obsessive, or a combo of the two, but it is new.

Given how much her personality has returned to normal, we find it easy to forget why she lost her leg in the first place. She has her first post-op oncology appointment tomorrow. We anticipate she will have her first dose of chemo, after they do some new baseline blood-work and (likely) chest x-rays.

Thanks for listening/reading. It is nice to share what is going on with people who understand the process and what we are going through.