Well, guess I will just post links to the pictures and we can take it from there.... :/

Briston had his left hind leg amputated yesterday afternoon. He weighed in at 141 when we checked in, I was a little bummed by that, as I tried to get him to slim down a bit before surgery. He was 142 a couple of weeks ago.

Turn's out that Rene was correct, he was kept over night.  So we picked him up this morning and so far it's gone well.  He did have to be carried to the car from the clinic and from the car to the house after going a dozen steps or so each time.  I am assuming it's the drugs that have him so easily tiring and unstable.  His incision looks good. It has one puffy spot and two spots that have squeezed out around the staples, but so far nothing to be alarmed about with them.  (See picture links below)

He's drank some water and ate a mouthful of wet food tonight, just enough to get his meds in him. He's on two different antibiotics and carprofen and tramadol. He's resting fairly well.  Early today he had some panting going on and some shifting around.  But the last few hours he's been pretty much his normal sleeping self.  He did perk up when I ate some toast and he's aware of doors opening and what the other dogs in the house are reacting to.  But isn't attempting to get up.

We got him up a few hours ago to see if he needed to pee, he didn't pee, but he seemed to enjoy being outside, where he took a break and then he took another break on the tile in the house, where we let him hang out for an hour or so.  It's hard to have him on the tile, because of the set up of our house and the amount of other dogs we have here this weekend.  When he's on the tile, we have to block the main passageway for every other moving being in the house, including humans.  So he can't hang out there permanently. 

We created a "nest" of blankets in the family area, where he's in the main area we hang out, but we can block the other dogs from coming to see him.  Although the chi mix puppy that we have staying with us figured out how to squeeze around everything!  Briston did not seem stressed by him and he did not get in Briston's space, so I let him be.  The other dogs are laying outside the gate blocking access to us and wondering when they get a turn in here with us! 🙂

When we moved him back to his "nest" we took the towel out from under his belly that we are using to help support him, after he got on the carpet, and just let him do what he wanted and he took two or three steps on his own before laying down. So that was a good sign!

Earlier today when we were hanging out on the floor with him he asked us for belly rubs and some chin scratching and laid his head in my lap.  So I think he's doing pretty dang good for a dog just out of major surgery!  I will be sleeping on the couch next to him tonight, but I think it's going be a pretty non-eventful night.

The vet said that visual exam of the cancer spot on the bone makes him think it may not be bone cancer...he said it has an odd appearance. I will follow up more with that at our next visit, as he said he froze it or something like that and that I can make a decision to get it tested at any point.  We had to borrow the money to do this surgery, so the extra $200 to test the bone isn't readily available at the moment.  I would like to do it, to know for sure what we are dealing with, but not sure it's going to happen.  The bottom line on getting the leg amputated was that X-rays showed it was extremely fragile, the vet was surprised he hadn't fractured it yet and his pain was only going to increase, so no matter what it was, the leg needed to come off....so we didn't do any further testing, other than a fungal test to rule that out.  We did assume based on X-ray appearance and location it was bone cancer.

Good news on his chest X-rays, they were clear!!!  Happy about that!

Renee his name is Briston because he came to us as Bristol and I didn't not like the sound of it, so it morphed into Briston. I thought it was a made up name, but I have met someone from a town called Briston and there is a girl at my church whose name is Bryston, I actually taught her last year in children's classes and she comes to my house every year to do gingerbread houses!! There is always a bit of confusion when she is here. 🙂

Briston day before amputation

His come pet me look (pre-amp)

His "nest" (shows his amputation)

His amputation incision (The puffy spot at the top seems to just be fluid and then you can see the two spots where the flesh has popped a little bit out of line.  This is how it looked this morning when we picked him up)

Resting after a trip outside (I think that this picture also shows that he's not overweight, although he can loose a bit more to ease the pressure on his three legs, and we will be doing that.)

His big head, sad face. (Although he always looks like this.  My Mom said he looks drugged, I think it's only because we know he is, this is what he usually looks like when I try to get a picture. I think of it as the Saint Bernard look.)

Thanks Kerren!

He does like the tile for the coldness of it, we live in AZ, so that is his normal place to be.  It's just hard on the rest of the household to have him on it right now.  We normally have four dogs, and then right now we have four extra because of people traveling for the holiday and for summer vacation. They were all scheduled to be here before we scheduled Briston's surgery, and finding a dog sitter at the last minute is hard and stressful, so we didn't feel we could cancel, even with the surgery.  I have four kids still at home that have to climb over the gate(s) when we have him on the tile.  So the bottleneck when we block the dogs from getting to Briston so he can be on the tile is huge and can be frustrating for all involved. (well except Briston!)  So the plan is to do it as we can, but for the most part he's stuck in the "nest", for now.  

I was thinking about doing some ice packs, I thought I had read something on here about it, so thanks for mentioning that!

Tumeric is supposed to have some anti-cancer properties, as well as anti-inflammatory and a few other good things.  I figure it won't hurt him to have it as a supplement and it could help his joints and maybe help with the cancer.  Will also be giving it to my 11yr old labradoodle as he's getting arthritic, will be interested to see if it helps. I'm on a FB group regarding it and there are lots of great stories of it helping, so we'll see.

I took a nap today when he did! 🙂  And I am positive Jayden will be very happy to see his boy and help with him when he gets home!

The afternoon of his second day home was pretty uneventful in one way and full of HUGE events in another way!  He is just trooping right along and getting stronger and stronger all the time, that is the uneventful side.

The HUGE events are that he stood to eat his dinner the entire meal!!  We brought his raised eating stand, that he has always eaten out of, into his "nest" and he stood there eating away! And he ate a full meal, mixed with wet food, but still full meal. I am not having to shove meds down his throat! YAY!

He walked unassisted most of the day!  We are always there by him, one at his head and one at his tail, but we are hardly ever having to do anything for him!  He does get tired on the trip back from the bathroom and we did give him an assist lift to the concrete so he laid down on a clean surface, but it was just a few feet more.  And we also have just encouraged him vocally and loved on him when he stops for a break.  But no sling to help him walk and no more carrying the big lug!!

He was pretty alert through out the day. He definitely had down time where he was out and snoring, but over all we are surprised how "with it" he seems to be.  We expected the meds to have him much more loopy.  Not that we are complaining!  He seems to be doing well with the level of meds.  No panting or shifting around, until right at the end of the window before we can give him more.  And even those signs are very subtle, I'm just being hyper vigilant about his actions, as I know by the time I see those, he's already in a certain amount of pain and I want to stay on top of it.

He also climbed on his raised kuranda type bed yesterday with no help!! A couple of times, and he turned around on it after a couple of hours on it.  He is also laying on his amp side, which I take that as a positive sign that he's not in significant pain.

The only slightly negative thing is that he did lick his incision at one point, so we may have to put the cone of shame on him. I was hoping to avoid that, but am not taking chances on staples getting ripped out or the incision getting irritated/infected.  They did not send us home with one, but I think I have one big enough for him from other dogs we've had here that needed a cone of shame . Although I am tempted to send my husband for the soft inflatable circle collar as I think that would be nicer for us all. I have tried to use those in the past for a hind end issues on another dog and it didn't work, so I am a little wary of trying again....  We will just have to play it by ear for now.  He's not left unsupervised at all right now, so we are ok for the moment.

Last night was pretty uneventful. He slept on his bed most of the night.  I slept on the couch next to him. I got up around 3am to pee and when I came back we had a belly rubbing session and a body rub down.  He can't seem to get enough of those! 🙂  Then we went back to sleep. He did move off his bed at some point for a bit and then got back on it. So he's pretty mobile and I am happy about that. 

He made a trip out to pee this morning and didn't have to stop on his way out! He made it to his spot peed and made it back to the concrete without laying down!! I had to do lots of encouraging on his way back to keep him moving, but he did it!  

He ate his breakfast this morning with all his normal supplements in it and his meds, so that was good too!  

I am trying really hard not to be like yay, we're over the hump and it's going to be good from here on out!! As I don't want to get slammed down too hard if he does have a reversal.  But he really is doing so good and I am so proud of him and happy with where he is!  He is certainly still dealing with healing and pain, not saying that, but for where he's at three days out from surgery, he's doing excellent in my opinion. I can't think of anything we would want him to do better on.

He isn't all sparkly or animated unless we are getting food ready.  But I don't think he's excessively depressed either. He's by nature a pretty low key, mellow dog, except for brief moments of clowning around here and there. Or when we are going for walks or rides.  But he perks up when we sit down by him and rub his belly and he watches us and the other dogs and when I am getting food bowls ready for everybody, he comes to the gate and sits there watching me and stands up pretty quick when I bring him his food and moves to his stand. He also came to me this morning, while I was sitting on the couch and asked for chin scratches, which also indicates to me that he pretty lucid.  He might be slightly down, but I think it would be well within the norm for recovery from major surgery and as much from the drugs as from anything else.  He is spending a lot of time sleeping, but again, I think it's well within the norm for being drugged and recovering from major surgery. Plus he is a dog that sleeps a lot every day.  

If you are looking at amputation with your dog, I would recommend paying attention to their normal patterns of sleep and interacting with the household prior to surgery, so that you can have a good baseline of knowing how far from normal your dog may or may not be afterwards.  I am a stay at home Mom, so I know how much my dogs sleep during the day. I've encountered people who have no idea that their dogs sleep a significant portion of their days, so I could see being worried about that during recovery, if you were not prepared.

close up of his incision on day two post op day

resting on his trip back from peeing

Eating standing up!

Laying on his bed on his amp side.

Stretched out this morning

incision on day three post op day

Well I have no idea what I was doing yesterday, but I tried all of the boxes down the side yesterday, thinking I had figured out what I missed, but it didn't seem to work...  Thank you so much for the additional tip!!!!

Thank you for the response. I knew that there was a party going on!  So I expected it might be awhile before anyone saw my thread. This has been a great place to get my thoughts down and has made me think about doing a blog.

Today has continued to be a good day.  He did yelp for the first time today, wow did that startle all of us!  My 15 yr old was by him and said he tried to lay down on his amp side, and we think he bumped it or something like that. Phew!!  Talk about heart stopping!

He is making trips out to potty without resting on one leg of the trip.  This last time it was on the leg back in he didn't rest.  Loving seeing him getting stronger every time he makes a trip out!  He is still mostly just laying around, which I am happy about.  Makes it much easier than trying to restrain him from moving too much! 

As you can see, we've let the pack interact with him again today.  We let the calmer ones, who we knew would ignore him, join him in his "nest" and they just laid down, loving all the blankets!  He of course was not stressed at all by them.  Then later when he was hanging out, outside on the concrete we let the younger crowd join us and they did sniff him, but respected our requests to leave him alone and now everything is back to normal. That is nice, no more juggling gates and he can lay on the cool tile all he wants.  Below is two of the gang enjoying the luxury of blankets! The little black girl you can barely see on the raised bed is a fiend on beds/blankets and has chewed up so many that we gave up and usually only have the raised beds for them.  She doesn't touch them for some reason.  Her name is Sasha and she is a foster dog, the yellow boy is my personal dog, he's an 11yr old labradoodle, his name is Happy.  In the tank is an albino, candy cane variation, corn snake, his name is Arrowmint.  The white head you see in the picture above is another foster dog and her name is Ivy. 

So we are just keeping on, keeping on.  

Today is about the same as yesterday, excellent!  Up and eating/drinking and peeing!  We did have to add the "cone of destruction" to him today.  Normally it is the "cone of shame " but when you put it on a dog that big, it becomes the "cone of destruction"! He can wipe out my family room in one swipe if he wanted!! He's tolerating it ok. I think it's too big and am hoping to get hubby to help me cut it down a little bit. (he's the handy one...) But very cautiously, as I do NOT want him able to get to his staples!

In the picture below he's walked quite a ways on bare tile!! And was able to get back to a standing position on the bare tile!!  So happy with his progress!

Edited to add: we cut about four inches off of this cone and it fits much better!!   AND WE HAVE POOP!!!!!!  Happy about that! The lady at the front desk at the vet clinic was concerned he hadn't pooped yet as of this morning and I was like, I think we are fine....because of all the awesome info here. I knew it would happen today or tomorrow, no worries!!! 🙂  Thanks guys, you guys are amazing support!!!

I got to sleep in my own bed last night!!!! YAYAYAYAYAYAYAY!!!!!  He made it up the stairs!  We have a landing half way up, so he when he got up there we had him lay down and rest and then he made it to the top!  I missed my bed! We really debated about whether it was going to be too much, but he wanted to try it and he had been moving a bit more, but not a ton more, so I didn't think it would be over doing it for him.  And having the landing for him to rest on helped. Without that, we might have waited another night. Here is a picture of him on the landing....

The only down side was that he couldn't get comfortable on "his" futon and so it was a somewhat restless night, the first one we've had.  He moved around a lot and we had some concerns about what was causing it.  But today, we really think it was he wanted to be on his bed and he couldn't be.  We had to lift him on it originally, and when he couldn't get comfortable he got off it, with us standing there, and we didn't want to help him back on it in the middle of the night, because if he couldn't get on it, he probably shouldn't be on it.... at least that was our thinking.  Here he is on his "bed"  He was fine on the bed, until we put his cone of shame back on....but we had too, he's just licking it too much with out it.  🙁

We did however cut the cone down by about four inches, so it's a much better fit!  Hoping this angle shows how much we cut it down from yesterday!  He's happier with the smaller size, but still unhappy about it period.

This morning he was hanging out in the grass after walking out there and peeing, and he has normally been just laying there for a bit, resting before he makes the trip back inside. I needed to take care of something inside so I dashed in for just a minute, and I can see him the whole time, that whole side of the house is glass doors and windows, I looked up and he was up behind our retaining wall!! What!!!  You were just laying down!  So I got out there in time to take a picture, but not in time to help him back down.... man, can't turn my back for a second!!  What happened to my invalid!! Just kidding, I will take him doing so amazingly!  He did it again later today. (It's where he prefers to poop.) He's not doing a lot of walking around otherwise, so I think we are ok so far. I don't think he's overdoing it.  I think I am hitting the stage where I need to make sure he's not over doing it though!  He's normally a pretty "lazy" dog, it took a lot to motivate him to get up pre-amp, so at least I have his normal temperament to help me.  Here's the wall, it's maybe 2 ft tall, maybe 1.5 ft.  So not super tall, but tall enough for a dog less than a week out of surgery!

Huge deal today!! He was back in one of his favorite spots today!!! On the cool tile, behind the table, out of the way of traffic, but still able to monitor the household and what's going on!  And yes, he is getting breaks from his cone of shame , but I am watching him close when I take it off.  No set backs wanted!!

One of my foster dogs had to have a thorn removed from her leg today....it had broken off in her leg and it got infected (I kind of forgot to deal with it when I came home from that hike...a week ago.....bad mommy), so the vet bandaged it afterwards and sent her home.  She wouldn't leave the bandage alone, despite it being sprayed with bitter spray, so now I have TWO cone heads.

My husband caught this picture of us last night.  He is fine with us hugging on him and loving on him and laying our heads on him as a pillow, but we don't tend to do a lot of head hugging with any of our dogs, I just tend to feel like it's too much in their space and to much potential with kids for issues, so we just don't do it.  So this is a rare, rare moment that he caught.  He actually had brought his head up to me.  Such a tender moment.

A picture of the pack, well part of the current pack. Two of the dogs are just out of picture range.

A parting shot of his big mug!!!  Thanks again for all the support and sharing of information, it has made this journey so much easier!  And hopefully all my ramblings will be able to give back to someone else who is looking at amputation with their big dog.