Thank you for your reply.  He's been home for about 10 hours now and hasn't been resting much, but has definitely been wanting to eat, which is I guess a good sign, especially because he's being pretty bossy about it!  I'll take your and Jerry's vet's advice and will keep my fingers crossed that when he needs to go, he'll get up and go! 🙂  This is all so new (and sudden) to me, I'm so glad I found this site! 

Hi all, thanks so much for your replies.  My poor "monkey" was whining all through the night and wouldn't even try to get up this morning, but he finally did get up to eat.  I was beginning to wonder if i made the right decision, but seeing him finally get up (even if it was for only a few minutes) makes me feel better. 

To answer some questions, I took Bailey in a few months ago for what I thought might have been a sprain to his right front leg which I figured was probably from a year of barreling down some pretty steep stairs at my apartment.  Xrays initially showed arthritis as the culprit, but when shots and deramaxx didn't seem to be making a difference and his elbow really started to swell, we took more xrays.  I didn't want to put him through a bone biopsy (and would have opted against chemo/radiation for him) so I tried antibiotics hoping it was a bone infection.  That didn't do anything, his pain had become obviously unbearable and he was dragging the leg around, and more xrays showed the bone was getting worse but no sign of tumors having spread to his chest, so I opted for amputation.  They'll do a biopsy on the leg, so I'll find out what it was we were dealing with. 

I could definitely use any tips on front leg amputation, especially with big dogs.  Since he's so big and has such a broad chest, it seems to be much harder than if it had been a back leg.

Unfortunately for him, he'd had 3 knee surgeries on his back legs (2 patellar luxations on left and a TPLO on right) so he didn't have an easy time getting up with all 4 legs.  I was concerned his remaining front leg wouldn't be able to handle not only his weight and broad chest, but whatever else his back legs couldn't handle. Fortunately, my apartment is carpeted so when he falls he's not falling on a totally hard surface, but unfortunately, he rolls over whenever I try to help him up and he's not taking to any sort of sling (tried the canvas grocery bag slit down the sides) so I can't provide much support other than letting him lean against me once he finally does decided to stand. I do keep a tshirt on him which when he's not trying to chew the tshirt off, does seem to keep him from licking the stitches and keeps it clean when he falls over ... 🙁  He does seem to have traction issues, especially with his weak back legs and would love to put the Bark n Boots on him but I'm sure he'd chew them off in no time (he prefers to be naked 🙂

I'm not sure how much to spoil him now and how much tough love to give him?!?  He was barking at me to bring his food to him this morning, and I opted not to but brought it close enough to him so that he'd only have to take a few steps to get it   I live in an upstairs apartment, and was hoping he'd just potty on some sod I put outside my door, but he refused and kept whining to go downstairs to the yard.  I finally gave in, and we hobbled one step at a time downstairs where he immediately peed and pooped 3 times, but it was pretty dramatic trying to get him back upstairs. This morning, he stood up at the gate and wouldn't sit down, so I let him go downstairs and he seems to get around better when he can pick up speed than he does when he's up here, and he just lies down when he needs to rest, ... so maybe this will work out okay ...   🙂

Thanks again to all of you, I'm single and live alone and only weigh about 30 lbs more than he does, so this whole process has been pretty exhausting, but I'm thankful to have all of you to help me through this! 

Thanks Tara!

I have to admit I feel a bit like a negligent mom for letting him do the stairs, but he is so stubborn and it seemed to upset him more that he couldn't go downstairs than it did to leave his food a few feet away.  we went down one step at a time and I helped him, but getting back up definitely remains the tricky part. That being said, when I went downstairs to help him get back up the stairs, he turns around and walks away, but when I came back up here to get my coffee, I turned around and he had found a way to make it up the stairs without me!  Typical boy and typical bulldog, I guess!   I'll let him go one more time tonight for potty break but the rest of the day will be spent upstairs resting!