Hello all.  I'm reaching out again as I don't know what is normal for this point in Nyla's recovery.  She is now almost two weeks post op from a rear leg amputation.  Her post op course was complicated by the fact that she did not tolerate the pain medications well (nausea/vomiting).  She refused to eat for almost the first week until I finally found out about canned cat food!  Her appetite is still not what it had been prior to surgery.  She will eat the cat food and a small amount of chicken/rice however she refuses to eat anything else as I talked about in a previous post.  Her surgeon had tried her on anti-nausea med which helped a little however Nyla had to be put on Keflex (an antibiotic) as the top part of her incision wasn't completely closing several days ago.  It is now looking much better.  She doesn't tolerate Keflex either as she has had this after another surgery years ago.  I finally just stopped almost all of her medicine with the exception of her Deramaxx (NSAID) as she was on this before surgery and did fine with it.  Again, I know all dogs are different but when does everyone feel that they started to see their dogs again? And by "see" I mean that they're eating almost normally, they're excited about things they usually get excited about and generally have their normal look back.  I just wondered if this was normal at this point (nearly two weeks post op).  I don't know if I have realistic expectations as to what she should be acting like.  She is drinking appropriately and seems to be interested in food however whenever she smells anything else (besides cat food) she turns her nose to it! I have literally tried everything else as I want her to have as much energy as possible.  She is pooping/peeing just fine.  She is walking great on her three legs and continues to amaze me daily as to how quickly she is adapting.

I copied this from my previous post just for her background:

A little background information on Nyla just so everyone knows about her as I'm sure I'll be posting again:
Nyla is a VERY active 8 year old Bernese Mountain Dog- not your typical couch potato of a big dog! She grew up in Vermont and has spent her life skiing in the mountains with me and hiking in the Adirondacks. She does not realize she is a bigger dog and is as active as they come. She tore her ACL two years ago and ended up having a TPLO which she did great with. We were back skiing and hiking and things had been absolutely great up until two months ago when she started limping in her back leg. I didn't think much of it as she had been chasing squirrels and thought she overdid it. I eventually went to my local vet who took X-rays and did bloodwork which all looked good. She was put on Deramaxx and this seemed to help quite a bit initially however then it stopped working. My local vet wasn't sure what it was however I had concerns about cancer given my girls breed. I took her back to the surgeon who did the TPLO. He found a mass near her TPLO which he biopsied and then sent that for further testing. It was confirmed to be histiocytic sarcoma. Chest X-rays and ultrasound of belly do not show any mets- thank goodness. I had a very tough decision regarding the amputation however, after having a second opinion everyone agreed that at this point this appears to be localized to the leg only. I work in human medicine so I know everything is not always as it appears and cancer can be a funny disease process and do what it wants. The point being, with the information I had now, things looked good and since she was an active and otherwise healthy 8 year old I decided to go ahead with the amputation. If nothing else, I just wanted pain relief for my dog as she hasn't been able to bear weight on this leg prior to her surgery....if it buys her more time with me then that is a bonus that I will be more than happy about. I'm hoping that once she gets the swing of things on 3 legs that she can return to being a therapy dog and going back to nursing homes!

Please let me know what other suggestions you may have for food to entice her besides cat food so that she can get back to her regular food.  Chicken brother, beef, beef liver, tuna,chicken and rice is what I've tried so far.  Please also let me know what your dogs were like at the two week post op mark so that I have realistic expectations.  Thanks in advance!

Michelle and Nyla