Aloha from the Big Island of Hawaii.

In late October our rambunctious 7-year old poi dog (greyhound-staffordshire-retriever mix, 70 lbs of pure muscle) started limping as we returned from our daily run and mongoose-hunting.  When it kept getting worse, after a week we went to the vet and xrays confirmed her suspicions of osteosarcoma in the left front leg.  Our vet has a holistic practice and she immediately put Krishna on a homemade food diet of what in Chinese medicine are characterized as "cooling" foods, with herbal supplements for immune bolstering and pain management .  She also had us speak with an excellent surgeon about amputation, which after reading on this forum and elsewhere we decided was the quickest way to end the pain and give him a good shot at quality of life (this is a dog that loves to run and swim and do agility). My husband had a particularly hard time given all the stats on metastisis and length of life, but we kept remembering that when translated into human terms, if a treatment for a loved one could give them even another 3 or 7 years of quality life, wouldn't we say yes without hesitation?

The surgeon showed us some studies indicating that survival times with and without chemo might not be that different, which helped us embrace going with the Chinese medicine equivalent of strong herbs post-surgery.

Krishna was otherwise in terrific shape, which I think helped with the recovery, although it made it difficult to keep him quiet and he had big seromas and eventually a lot of drainage (boxes of Kotex and all my old tshirts helped).

Six weeks past amputation, we were ready for his first swim as a tripawd, with the help of the float vest recommended on this site.  I have to figure out how to upload or link the video--unless you look closely, you'd never believe the dog leaping into the water and racing his human "dad" for the ring could possibly be missing a leg! 

The hardest part for us is not to worry about every little thing.  The nice change is he's become calmer and cuddlier and the perfect patient which endears him to his vets (he used to be more than a bit hyper, although he's really smart and gentle).  But we read so much into tiny changes in his behavior:  not finishing his breakfast (although he still eats every morsel fo dinner); less stamina; a bit of wheezing sometimes when he lays still are the latest worries).  We didn't start on the herbal "chemo" until our vet felt his pulses were strong enough post-surgery and we just doubled up to full dosage, so I keep reminding myself that it isn't "just" herbs, but something possibly as challenging to his system as standard chemo.

Would love to hear experiences anyone else has had with the holistic options.  He's taking Bone Stasis Formula and Stasis Breaker.  We are about to start with an algae supplement called BioPrep.

And mahalo to everyone on this site who shares their experiences, photos, and encouragement.  Although I've been a lurker for the past couple of months, I've appreciated it immensely and felt it was important to give back by sharing a bit of our experience too.

Krishna's "mom" -Beth