Caring for a Three Legged Dog or Cat
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Very impressive! Definitely made to be Nicholas specific for his size gate and demeanor
This is why we do what we do ;
He's full of life and having fun, going to a barbeque tonight
I love this!!! Such a smart boy!!
We say Use your stairs, go around, and he's getting it.
Happy Hannah had a glorious additional bonus time of over one yr & two months after amp for osteo! She made me laugh everyday! Joined April's Angels after send off meal of steak, ice cream, M&Ms & deer poop!
Such a great idea and a nice boost to his quality of life and comfort! I wish I could think of a solution for our stairs. It’s 2 flights though so the only solution would be a different house! Fortunately, the main living areas and master bedroom are downstairs but he did used to like going upstairs with me if I was up there with the kids watching a movie in the theater room or feeding the reptiles. Now, I just don’t stay up there for long periods of time because I feel so badly closing the gate on him!
Those stairs are ingenious! And doesn't it give an extra oomph of pride when you make something from scrap wood? For me it does at least.
Now, two days later Nicholas is using his stairs for his own reasons. He decided he wanted his breakfast in the kitchen, the way he used to have it and showed up unexpectedly. So he is going up and down quite often and I don't think he would have been strong enough a month ago.
Nick has grown up being almost a brother to a pack of wolf dogs, espectially the middle one Roo, and he actually won the fence racing contest yesterday! Of course he gives himself a 20 foot handicap,
but when he goes full gallop he's as fast as he ever was. Nicky adjusts his play with smaller dogs and Roo is the only dog he really treats full force brother-rough. I was worried Roo would knock him off balance, but their play was just the same scenario as usual, with Roo pushing it a little at the end, Nicky snarling and knocking him off hard, and Roo stalking off determined to try again another day. This has been going on for 7 years!
Eustacia, I totally understand about the two stories. I've pretty much stayed down on Nicky's level too with all our people stairs gated off, and now with the Nicky stairs, I am faced with sorting my half of the office, on the higher level. So all is not perfect about those stairs!
If the Yale vaccine is going to work, it will be working now. They say about six weeks before it reaches full effectiveness. Finally started the cyclophosphamide on Thursday, 3 months post op. I asked his rehab therapist, "If I have to wear gloves handling this stuff, and I presumably don't have lung mets, why am I giving it to my dog?" Good question. I am monitoring it very closely for side effects and she says the advantage of a pill is that the drug will be out of his system in a day or two if I decide to stop. After all, ten years from now I will not remember if he died in February or July. I'll remember if he had a happy, active, useful and loving life to the end. This approach fits his character, I hope.
suzanne52515 said
After all, ten years from now I will not remember if he died in February or July. I'll remember if he had a happy, active, useful and loving life to the end. This approach fits his character, I hope.
That is really well said! 
And very true. It's always about quality of life, always.
Love those stairs! Pretty ingenius, you've got a handy hubby there.
I have to highlight this again. Brilliantly stated!!
After all, ten years from now I will not remember if he died in February or July. I'll remember if he had a happy, active, useful and loving life to the end.
It lit up my day today to read how Happy he is. Nicky being Nicky again. that's what it's all about!! Mastering his new "stair platform" so he could reclaim his routine of jaci t breakfast in the kitchen.
Yes indeedy, large breed dog provides ins for all big pups!
Hugs
Sally and Alumni Happy Hannah and Merry Myrtle and Frankie too!
Happy Hannah had a glorious additional bonus time of over one yr & two months after amp for osteo! She made me laugh everyday! Joined April's Angels after send off meal of steak, ice cream, M&Ms & deer poop!
It’s so great to see Nicholas doing so well. Congratulations. The stairs are awesome!
“After all, ten years from now I will not remember if he died in February or July. I'll remember if he had a happy, active, useful and loving life to the end. This approach fits his character, I hope.”
Really LOVE this. ☝🏻 Thanks for the reminder.
Well it's been 13 weeks and a day today. Nick was his old friendly self a day or so post amp, but now he's back to his previous self physically too. Even his stamina seems about the same. We took a long family walk out in the big back pasture today through rough ground and Nicky disappeared on various explorations, didn't lie down midway. Then a lady came to pick apples in the orchard and Nicky walked along with her and stayed to keep her company until she was through (except for a brief leap into the barn after a squirrel). He can play with big pushy teenage dogs and still keep his gentle authority, no balance problems. He went out to play music at a community center last night and he stayed between our chairs for two hours while we fiddled, such a good dog. He's swimming strongly although still a big baby about stepping down into the pool. He goes clomp clomp clomp up and down his big stairs. All the things I was concerned about. Actually I think he's getting a little full of himself... It's time to review some training!!
I am monitoring the effects of the metronomic chemo closely, giving the daily prescription every other day. It seems to me that he has more energy on the off days, but I'm not sure. The receptionists at the BARC Yale clinic are 'crossing their fingers for this giant sweet boy' since the large cyst was sort of a promising sign but I try not to think about that.
Here's a picture of Nick swimming in case another Newf person finds this. The therapist says tripawds list to one side at first and then self correct with their back legs but he's almost perfectly straight now. As you can see he's adapted a Newf breast stroke. He does not dog paddle. It's kind of like vertical sculling with impulse from the hind legs, a little motor under the big hairy body. Not as fast as before, but very strong and does the job. The therapist is barely holding him, holding him back a little. (I wish we had done dock diving pre amp, he'd feel more secure about entering this pool)
Aww he looks so confident in the water!
Being full of himself is understandable. Not only is he devastatingly handsome, but he's an incredible survivor too. Oh yeah, he's awesome!
Hope he's been having a good week. We look forward to the updates, keep 'em coming!
One of Nicholas' long time dog park people friends said yesterday
"He's like an uncle that everybody loves.... the dogs love him, the people love him...."
He's always had a calming effect on groups of dogs whenever he appears. I'm going to feel sorry for myself when he dies, but that's a little selfish because he has meant so much to so many people in different ways. We never completed our therapy dog training due to covid, but I see that working dogs find their own work, and he has found his. I'm really kind of in awe of this dog!
Nicholas got up his nerve to get in the pool yesterday. The swim therapist invited an enthusiastic Lab to swim with him and that did it. Swimming is just so good for his muscles and his feelings about himself and he loves it once he manages to get in! Another big highlight for him: we had a party last weekend and he was able to go up his big stairs and greet the guests by himself at the front door and bring each one down the hall to the music room "Look at this wonderful person I found!" He was so excited and they felt very welcomed I'm sure!
All seems to be going very well, with great support from the posts from you all here (I read them every day) and from his excellent rehab therapist. The amputation has posed no problems for him, I'd say. He doesn't notice it, dogs don't notice it, he's mostly around dog people so they have a good attitude (but one person did ask me if I'd noticed that my dog was limping! ) We just went on a walk to the orchard. He likes pack walks so there were two of us and a chicken who thought about taking a bite of an apple he was eating but decided against it.
His rehab therapist thinks I can talk OSU into a CT scan if the coughing begins to start, even though I have not followed their instructions. Apparently they switch all staff every month as an educational model, which explains their rather random approach. He is still on an every other day dosage of cyclophosphamide (half dosage) I'm not sure about whether it tires him on the dosage day but it's worth it if OSU will still give him a CT scan, then we'll see. I do give him 100mg of Rimadyl daily and two pills on chemo days as prescribed and I think it takes the edge off.
So that's about it for Nicky. Not much happening but I'll keep you posted every few weeks.
Not much happening? Haha! That boy is is nothing but a pawty! 
Can we have him be our crowd control for our next big shindig? Maybe he was a fancy pants butler in his previous life. I would love to get greeted by Nicholas and escorted into a party with that handsome pup by my side.
Yeah the thing about working with teaching hospitals is the students are on rotation. The longer you work with the department the more you'll see different students going through the rotations for oncology, or whatever department you're working with. The professors stay the same but the team changes. It's good though, keeps the brightest, youngest minds, looking at your dog's health in new ways that one person alone usually cannot.
Really glad he's doing so well. He defies all the old stereotypes about how giant breeds can't make great Tripawds.
So awesome to read about how well Nicholas is doing! He is a handsome boy for sure. And he’s living his best life. That is what is most important.
Coincidentally, Ophelia just had a routine checkup with her oncologist about an hour ago and i asked about a CT scan. The onco told me that it’s available anytime that i want to do it but that she doesn’t think that we need to do one unless we see anything suspicious in the x-rays. I told her that i might choose to have one done at the six month mark and she was agreeable to that. The advantage of it is that it can see smaller metastases than the x-rays. So the question is, how would it change our approach to what we are currently doing if the CT scan did show something that the x-rays did not? I’m not sure. I need to think about that. I’m curious as to why you’re thinking about a CT scan for Nicholas. I apologize if i missed that explanation in a previous post.
That's a good question Michael and it's helpful for me to think about it, so thanks.. As your oncologist says, CTs show lung mets more accurately, or in smaller stages, than Xrays. Both OSU and my rehab therapist (who is also a DVM) concur. I know when I looked at Nicky's scans they were kind of 3D and even I could see that the bone was lytic and over 50% damaged. Nick would have to be sedated for either Xrays or CTs so if I want some information about how he's doing (His CT was clear on July 31) I'd rather get an early warning so I can be alert to any signs of lung problems. The carboplatin shortage affected us here and OSU suggested doxorubicin two days before our appointment. For such a large dog whose full brother died of a heart condition in early July, doxorubicin was not a good choice.
So Nicky has had very little chemo, and he does not show pain. For those reasons, I'm very cautious about the condition of his lungs. How would it change my approach? He's leading a pretty athletic life right now. We're focussed on building muscle, balance and confidence. I think if I knew he had less breathing room in his lungs I'd slow things down a little. Shorten our walks, shorten our time out and about. Plan his stair use a little more instead of free access. Pay more attention when he wanted to rest. The fact that I raised my insurance to 90% a couple of years ago is definitely a factor in chosing a CT though.
Always good to hear the news of your beautiful girl!
The question of whether or not to do follow up x-rays or CT scans is such a big one for anyone dealing with this cancer. Zeus' family was one of the first who taught us that even when we get bad news, it's not necessarily the end of the story.
I think that if we had to do it over again, and our insurance covered at least most of the cost of a CT scan, I probably would, for exactly the reasons you said Suzanne. It's good to know what you're dealing with even if you opt out of further treatment, just so we can respect our dog's limitations at that point in their health journey.
Thanks you guys. That tracks my thinking about it. I have insurance that covers 90% as well but am a little concerned that they will deny a CT because it’s not necessary. But i am leaning towards doing one in approximately 2 months.
You’d have to do one every month or so to really make sure that you’re catching metastasis early if it happens. We could do a CT tomorrow and in two weeks something could pop up and we wouldn’t know. That is why I’ve been on the fence about it.
Ideally I’d like to do a PET scan. That would cover the entire body. I talked to Ophelia’s onco about that too. There are only a few PET machines for animals in the country. CSU has one but it’s currently down for repairs or replacement. It’s supposed to be back up and working soon but maybe I’m going overboard? I don’t know. I want to be as aggressive as i can be on fighting this but i also don’t want to put Ophelia through too much, or drive myself crazy.
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