Thanks for responses! Penny is still exhibiting sudden pain here and there. Sometimes, she will get herself up and walk to eat or drink water. Other times, she will yelp in pain for a few seconds. It’s hard to tell if something is really wrong, or perhaps because she’s laying on her “good” shoulder all day, her leg is sore from inactivity and it “hurts.” It’s still a terrible sound shes making though…

Her recovery has been much slower than I think we anticipated. Yes, it’s only been a week. And yes she’s a senior dog. But I expected she would be able to be on her feet for more then a few minutes and that does not seem to be the case, whether her “good” front leg is hurting or it’s just muscle soreness etc. 

We have a vet appt scheduled for next Thursday so hopefully she improves by then or else we can figure out what’s going on. Pushing on her good leg, she doesn’t yelp or cry. So it doesn’t seem like a broken bone or anything. But it seems like when she’s been at rest for a while (which is 99% of her day right now) she has this pain after getting up.

Sigh. I sure wish dogs could talk! We made the difficult decision to amputate her leg thinking this would make her life a little easier. I hadn’t thought her other front leg would not be a problem. 

oh and to answer the question about meds: she is currently on gabapentin twice a day (50mg I believe) and metacam once a day. When we had her on more gaba or gaba + hydromorphone, she was really loopy and dysphoric. 

Update: we took her in to the ER this morning just as a precaution. The doc on staff thought her front leg was ok, and that the pain she’s experiencing is maybe muscle soreness but likely phantom pain . However, he also agrees that she’s already on a pretty heavy cocktail for a dog her size, so instead of increasing Gabapentin, he added Tramadol in a dosage range/frequency we can try to see what works best for penny.

We are comforted to hear that her leg is probably ok. But it doesn’t change the fact that she lays all day on that shoulder and still does not seem keen on even attempting the kinds of things she often enjoyed doing like looking out the front window. Hopefully the Tramadol will give her a little comfort. We also discovered that her incision may have a slight infection, so she’s now on an antibiotic. Not sure if the infection could be at play here in her symptoms, but I thought I’d mention in.

Wondering if we should massage her arm somehow? 

Wonderful! Thanks for the tips. 

Yep, we have a few good dog rehab facilities in our area, and we already have one lined up for a couple of weeks from now when we hope her incision will be healed to a point where she could safely start treatment. Penny actually has rehab experience already; 3 years ago she was partially paralyzed from a herniated disc in her neck. 5 months of physical therapy made her good as new! 

she’s also doing that painful yelp when she barks, which makes me believe she has pain in her rib cage or chest. Hopefully her new cocktail helps her out. Otherwise, we will be seeing our reg vet next week regardless to follow up and see what we can change, if anything. 

You’re right about the leg vs soreness in the back etc. That’s a good way of looking at this and it makes a lot of sense. 

I also need to remind myself that she’s 13 and as an older dog this will prob be a little bit longer of a recovery. Still, we want to make sure she’s comfortable. 

Quick Penny update: Today marks two weeks since her front limb amputation surgery. Since last posting here, we have consulted with our regular Vet and Penny's surgeon changed some medications (put her back on Hydromorphone and introduced Amantadine).

Mixed news: She's still howling/yelping in pain occasionally. And despite the medicine introduced yesterday, she had a particularly long episode last night (maybe 30 seconds of howling/yelping). We hate to see her this way, and it's so hard to tell whether it's muscle pain, her leg proper, a disc issue, or phantom pain .

Good news: After seeing her primary Vet today, her incision, despite the infection, appears to be healing well. Likewise, it seems like her leg proper is actually fine from what they can tell. She also has been getting up on her own more and walking to get her water/food. Not always, but more often for sure. We took her to the park the other day for just three minutes to let her have some new smells, and to our surprise she was galloping around. We had to stop her after a few mins so we don't overdo it... So clearly, our special girl is in there somewhere, in between all of the cries/whines and occasional painful yelping/howling. We're seeing glimmers of hope! It sounds like we might indeed be dealing with some kind of nerve pain, though it's hard not to see the coincidence when she has a particularly "active" day and the increased pain that comes later that day...

We are increasing her Gabapentin dosage today and it sounds like we're on the right track. Hopefully, physical rehab will be the last puzzle piece we need to top off her treatment and get her comfortable and mobile again. We're hopeful! 🙂 We saw her little tail wagging today which was awesome.