7 month old Nelly is having her spay in a few weeks. Any tips for keeping her calm in the house eg. not jumping up on the sofa etc. I think it's going to be very hard to keep her on the ground!
Drugs Both Tilly and Cooper jumped over the couch when they came back into the house after their spay. Tilly's spay (years ago) was pretty uneventful), while Coopers was more of a problem. She had a large incision, and a pretty long operation. We kept her on some sedatives for about a week to keep her fairly quiet.
We are 4days post op with our pup Aramis from major abdominal surgery, and today has been a constant struggle even with him mostly confined to his crate. If there is any tips I would love to hear them too please
My boy was recently castrated, and it too was major surgery (his testes were located in his abdomen). The vet had to cut through layers of muscle to retrieve them, and he had three incisions. I was instructed to keep him quiet, but it was utterly impossible. The pain medication wasn't sedating in any way, shape, or form, and he started doing Zoomies on his first day home. After a week or so a large amount of fluid built up over the wounds and I had to return him to the vet (wasn't sure if it was a hernia). The vet had a good feel and told me he believed it to be just fluid (from inactivity, ha!) and he was certainly correct about the fluid (it absorbed back into his body in a few days). So my suggestion would be to absolutely insist on sedation. I did my best to keep him quiet, but, again, it was utterly impossible.
There are so many varying post-spay stories on here, you just don't know what you're going to get. Xena back to normal after 24 hours, but apart from restricted exercise (gentle lead walks) I didn't really keep her quiet. Sure, I didn't rark her up, but she jumped on and off the sofa as she pleased, and we played gentle fetchy/tuggy games in the house.
Stanley didn't even come back from the vets particularly tired. The vet nurse handed me a Tasmanian devil/tigger with a cone on his head with a smile like good luck! We just tried to keep him calm and not get him overly excited and he only got lead walks. But it was pretty much impossible. He was given internal stitches which helped as he couldn't bother them and when we took him back the nurse said he was healing nicely. You can't even see where it was now.
Libby's spay is tomorrow. Thought I was pretty calm about it but I had a dream last night that she died!! I must be subconsciously stressing about it Will let you know how we get on with that post op calmness.
The night Harley came home from her spay she jumped on the bed when I turned my back. I was HORRIFIED but she seemed fine and all she wanted was to be on the bed. We left her on the bed as long as possible and then DH gently lifted her off. But the evening of day two it was impossible to keep her quiet and calm. She wanted to do her normal things and when we didn't want to engage we got jumped on. We didn't encourage any rough play or jumping but it was so hard to stop Harley from doing it on her own. Good luck! And good luck to @DebzC!
Yes Sedatives are an option. The vet recommended them and prescribed them. They also gave us pain relief pills, though I think that a little discomfort might help keep her quiet. We had to adjust the pain meds way down, because they made Cooper really loopy and confused. She was on Carprofen, Tramadol, Acepromazine, Sucralfate and Amoxicillin after her surgery, partly because she vomited bile during the surgery and they wanted to coat her esophagus in case it was irritated.
This exactly. I know it's much easier for boys, but crikey, you would not have known. I remember a morning walk (on lead, a week or so after) he got pounced on by some friendly little spaniels and rolled over showing his tummy, squirming in ecstasy. I just shouted ' his stitches, mind his stitches!' However other periods of restrictive exercise I found harder - I saved up all my recycling - cardboard boxes, toilet rolls, milk cartons, juice containers, big and small boxes and newspapers, and hid tiny bits of kibble in each, scrunching up a sheet of newspaper with one piece of kibble in and putting all in a big box. Takes longer to do than it takes for him to find all the biscuits, but hey, they love it and used up a bit of brainpower
Finn is getting neutered on Thursday! I'm soooo worried about this post-op cone of shame time. I am probably going to ask for sedatives because he's just a nut if he can't get his afternoon runs at the park in.
Not especially, in this instance he was going for the treats rather than shredding the paper. It's true he likes a good chew on cardboard from time to time, he often gets my Amazon packaging and makes a bit of a mess, but as long as I've given it to him i don't have a problem with this. He's not and has never been a destructive chewer (occasional shoe withstanding) and has been brought up to chew kongs frequently too so a bit of paper mess is fine by me. I have bigger battles to pick with recall and pulling in exciting places
Bailey loves paper and cardboard shredding. He's not a particularly destructive chewer apart from his toys and cardboard and one flip flop when he was a few months old - makes one heck of a mess but then I hide things in the boxes, cardboard tubes etc so it tires his brain out nicely. Quick sweep with the broom (with Bailey in another room otherwise he chases the broom and jumps in the nice piles of shredded cardboard and scatters them everywhere!) and mess is sorted. He never takes anything without a cue from me or the OH to say he can have it.
We are 2 weeks post spay now, stiches came out last night. We got some sedatives from the Vet as we explained that she is very lively when we get back from work having been gone for 9hours+. Wife was off day after opp and I finished early and same on the Monday. We timed it so that we had the weekend with her. We are lucky in that we have my MIL living with us at present, so she was not on her own throughout the day. Plan was to get her to take some about an hour before we came home. Never needed them, as she seemed to just settle down and I think that was mainly due to her wearing a cone during the day. We thought she would be a nightmare, but was as good as gold. Only you know what Nelly is like, but wearing the cone seemed to settle Vanilla down heaps.
I've found there is so much conflicting information out there. Biscuit was spayed at the beginning of the month. The night she came home she calmly walked around the ottomans I had put next to the bed to help her step up and jumped on with a look of total disdain in my direction. I then thought she was asleep and didn't close the bathroom door when I bathed my children, only to find her trying to jump in to the bath with them. Needless to say, I was seriously considering calling the vet for sedatives! I managed to keep her a bit calmer than usual for two days, and then called the vet to find out if it was normal that she was literally behaving as if nothing had happened. He told me to relax and take my cues from her - obviously no dog parks or anywhere she could end up playing roughly with other dogs, but if she was happy to play as usual, then to let her. Not without worrying I did and she is fine.
Libby is now 5 days post-op. The first 3 days she was very subdued and we assumed it was the op until we took her doggy t-shirt off (used instead of a cone). She was happy as anything after that. She's kind of been naturally calmer, except for some zoomies yesterday. She hasn't touched the scar, although there are no stitches so that helps. She has walked a lot today but we've hidden balls etc. You'll probably find it easypeasy.
Nell is being spayed next Monday, Eeek ! I`ve had all my girls spayed but you soon forget about the trying to keep them calm part ! if I remember , with Millie , she was a bit groggy for the first few hours, then wanted to go for a walk , so we did but with her on lead until about day 8 when I did let her off but she was always quite a sedate walker , unlike Nell who I just know is going to be a nightmare ! x
