Whelp, it’s been a ride. We’ve been lucky as most of the ride has been pretty smooth. Harley started favoring his left front leg last fall but with another sick dog in the house, we really weren’t focusing much on Harley. The other dog, our beautiful 12 to 13 year old rescued yellow Lab passed away in our arms on September 5th and we were lost. But then Harley’s limping started to get more pronounced. It would come and go though so we just thought that it was possibly a soft-tissue injury. Ironically, the dog we had just lost had been limping on the same leg. X-rays didn’t show anything amiss, but the limping steadily got worse to the point that he couldn’t bear weight on the limb. X-rays were likely not that good. Lesson learned so with Harley, we took him to the ER, hoping to score a quicker appointment with a Neurologist because he had additional issues, besides the front limb lameness that were concerning. His bark was changing and his hind-end was getting a bit spastic. The ER vet convinced us to get x-rays done first to rule out bone cancer. Whelp. There it was. Clearly evident on the x-rays that he had a fairly large lesion on the proximal humerous. We set up a consult with a surgeon and while we were all a bit concerned with his ability to adjust to losing a leg, especially with his hind end being spastic, we felt that amputation would be in everyone’s best interest. Harley was in a lot of pain and he is not the most stoic dog. He was growling and snarling at us and with a previous bite history, we wanted to mitigate the situation as much as possible to keep everyone safe. So, amputation in early December, started chemo mid-January and finished up late April – 6 treatments of Carboplatin. He just went in for his 2 month post chemo check-up and all is well. Blood work looks great, no signs of mets in his lungs, and he’s maintaining a healthy weight. The dog eats like a horse….. He is still stubborn as all get out and is still a resource guarder…… And he’s too smart for his own good.
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