Hi everyone! My name is Alisha and my greyhound, Nicki, had her front right leg amputated on August 19. We’re almost one month post-amp! Nicki had a soft tissue tumor (my apologies for not knowing the exact type) and removing the tumor means she’s cancer free with little chance of it returning. Bloodwork and X-rays before her surgery were clean and besides her tumor, she had no other issues. Nicki turned 11 during the amputation recovery. She’s an older girl but she is still full of life and sass.

Before my question a little background: Nicki came home the night of her surgery and to say it was hard is an understatement. I slept on the couch next to her for a week. By about day 9 she was acting a little more herself. She was up and walking the first day! She had been hopping around on 3 legs prior to surgery and I think it was helpful for learning how to tripawd. She came home with great pain management : Nerve block, fentanyl patch, Carpro Chews, and gabapentin. We are lucky in that our vet specializes in greyhound care. 80% of her clients are greyhounds! We’re in Cincinnati and there are two large adoption groups in the area.

During Nicki’s initial recovery we did have a setback. At her 2 week appointment for stitches removal there was some infection and necrotic skin around the bottom area of her incision. The vet warned me that could happen and is a common complication in greyhounds. Their skin is much thinner than other dogs and is comparable to tissue paper with fur. We went the “easy” route of debridement. The vet cleaned the area up and restitched about 3 inches of skin. She also restitched a smaller 1 inch area because she didn’t like how it healed. We go tomorrow to get the second set of stitches removed!! Her incision looks great. Normal pink skin, no bruising, and no swelling. A night and day difference from her amputation incision!

Nicki is still taking 2 gabapentin a day. I’ve been able to wean her down to that amount over the last 2 weeks. Before her second procedure she was taking 6 a day! The infection was causing a lot of pain. I’ve tried twice to get Nicki down to 1 pill a day but she starts to show signs of pain. Restlessness, panting, wide-eyed, and she’ll yelp. My question is this: is this normal considering she had a second procedure for her to still be in pain? My gut is telling me her healing was delayed by 2 weeks which means her pain going away was more than likely delayed too. After a month of pain medication I’m feeling like Nicki will be on medication forever. It’s been a long 4 weeks. When we go tomorrow to get her stitches removed I plan on asking about her pain but wanted to run this by the tripawd experts.

Thank you!