As someone who is PRO amputation, it is hard to be the one saying no to it.

Nixon was weeks shy of his 12th birthday when he died.  Cookie will be 13 in May.  She is about 67 lbs.  She is not a trusting soul.  I put up our 8 foot ramp tonight to get her out of the car and she refused to use it.  Rich tried to pick her up to take her out of the car and she fought the entire time.  Cookie is full of a lot of nope.  This makes it hard to say yes to amputation.  Nixon never gave up and always knew that we would conquer everything together.  Cookie doesn't trust the vertical blinds above her bed to not eat her.  

Cookie communicates with her front feet and plays with her toys with her front feet.  I feel like amputation would be silencing her forever.  She also has spinal stenosis and some significant weakness in her hind end.  After Deuce, I don't trust the orthopedic team at NC State when they say a dog is a good candidate.  Physically she just might be but emotionally, I don't know.  She is still using the limb and is trying to hide the pain from me.

Although very invasive at first, once an amputation heals up, it isn't bad.  There is also the risk of her not waking up from it. 

They do cyberknife but that requires her going under general anesthesia four times.  She has to go under at least once just to see if she is a candidate.

They also do zoledronic acid without radiation but said the average survival time is just two to four months, doesn't do that much for pain or mets.  

I am not judging here but I do feel strongly that just giving tramadol, an nsaid, and gabapentin while waiting for a fractured or the pain to become unbearable is not an ethical or humane thing to do to a dog.  This is very common in the Greyhound community as so many are anti-amputation so I have seen a lot of suffering dogs over the past twenty years.

I am going to sleep and figure out what we are going to do.