Thanks everyone. My wife and I were debating whether or not to take him in even right before the appointment. His attitude, mood, energy were great! But I took him in anyways. His surgeon, the nurses, and the hospital has been and truly amazing.

When we got into a room and the doc came in I could tell she was either having a bad day or something was wrong. When they had taken Charlie into the back area before we got in an exam room the doc had noticed his leg, the one he's been trying not to use, felt thick. Without even asking (or charging) she took an x-ray.

It was relayed to me that when the images came up on the screen all the nurses started to tear up. Charlie is quite popular apparently and when the images came up and showed that the cancer had spread to his leg everyone had a knot in their throat. The doc was hoping, we were hoping, that HE'D be one of the ones that surgery fixed.

As soon as she told me, even before I saw the x-ray, my mind went fro rehab to hospice. From day one of this journey the first question regarding any sort of treatment, test, procedure, anything, was "Is this good for Chuck? How will this effect his quality of life".

Heating pads can't help this, nothing will. Even if money was no object, this would be the end of the road. He's been on the novox and will continue until tomorrow because he still has arthritis. I'm not concerned with the narcotics knocking him out. It doesn't matter, I don't want him in pain so we've started his Tramadol again. He's been in a great mood and great spirits as we spend today just hanging out as a family, soaking up some sun, and trying to distract ourselves just a little from what's next.

Tomorrow the surgeon and two nurses are coming to the house. We'll take care of the next step at home, in the sun, without the stress, without the anxiety of making the trek to the vet. He beat the odds already, I couldn't ask for anymore from the pup. He's been a huge part of our family since we've been a family and I'm not sure what it will be like when I come home and he's not here. I have a hard enough time just when he's at the groomers!

Oh, about the way he acted when I was sick. Charlie was never trained for any of that and it wasn't the first time he clued into something that we missed. When my wife was pregnant, with just a few weeks to go until the due date, Charlie started acting weird. He was really clamoring to my wife, wouldn't leave her side and anytime she sat down he'd be next to her with his head on her lap. At the time we never thought anything of it other than for my wife it was a little annoying if she was trying to eat or something. He's always wanted some lovin' but this was by far over and beyond what he normally would do.

A week or so later we found out there was a problem with pregnancy and that my wife had to have an emergency c-section. My son is now totally fine, but he spent a week in the NICU and while we were there day and night, it dawned on us that the doctor had told us problems started happening with the pregnancy about a week and a half before we had gone in. That's pretty much right when Charlie started acting the way he did. Never acted like that again to that degree.  

He's a good dog. He will be missed dearly and greatly.

Thanks everyone for the responses, it's been a very welcoming and comforting experience to share his story.

This image was taken this morning. It's too cold to give him one last dip in the water (wearing a life jacket of course) but at least it's sunny.