Dog resting after surgery

[WyrdMother]

Our lad went in to be Castrated and to have a hernia fixed last Thursday which meant 10 to 14 days house arrest rest, no walks, no jumping around says the Vet.

Anyway, no walks have been had and we've done our best to keep him calm, mostly successfully (? spelling, tired brain) but every so often he goes completely cookoo. Tonight DC was chatting to him from the bath (we have a bungalow and his rest area is the hall outside where he can see and be seen from almost anywhere in the house) and he went loopy, hurled himself at the bath, richochets off, hurtles through the sitting room, skids to a halt on his arse as I bellow SIT! and then tries to jump on my lap but makes a pigs ear of it and I have great big, sharp clawed paws flailing around my face. I grab him by the collar and he start thrashing manically from side to side at speed pratically twisting my hand off at the wrist.

He's a black lab, seven months old, bloody big already and strong as a ox, I had to drag him the short distance between where I was and the hall to prevent him hurting either him, me or both and with his blooming expensive stiches in mind I really don't want him to hurt himself.

Anyhoo, no damage done, the above is just me decompressing, he is generally very well behaved and obedient, just at the moment quite obviously stir crazy. We've stuffed Kongs for him, supplied bones and toys and done quiet and unenergetic training, he is spending time with us in the sitting room but because of the need to keep him quiet he is confined in the hall a fair bit, but still with people in sight. Does anyone have any other suggestions for tiring his mind out while we can't tire his body?

That's a long time for the poor boy to have no exercise! It sounds like you are doing everything right. The only other thing I can think of is to train him some tricks that don't require much movement? If he doesn't know leave it yet then that could be a good one to start with, or improving his 'stay'. I can't think of others off-hand (would roll-over be too much movement for his stitches?) but training is mentally taxing for him so will help to tire him out. Or maybe you could try hiding a treat under one of a set of several plastic cups and have him sniff out which one it is under; some dogs like that game.

The kong is great and you can get other toys that are mentally stimulating for dogs. There is a range by Nina Ottosson that you could try (you can get them from amazon) and involve the dog having to move things out of the way to get at treats.

Best of luck with controlling the zoomies!

I had this with my 11 month labradoodle and so used to try and teach her tricks. Are you not allowed to take dog into garden on lead.

One trick was to take some dog biscuits (part of dinner allowance) and scatter them around a room into corners, out of sight, then say "go Find".

Another one is to teach him the name of something. ie. put out a couple of toys and say fetch - if he likes one more than the other, then when he brings it to you say "blue ball" or whatever.

Can he catch things in his mouth, practice tossing a tennis ball to him. Make him do heel, on and off the lead and just follow you around the house.

Its also a good time to go back to basics with sit, stay, drop, leave, down, as at this age the often forget them as they go thru the equivalent of teenage years.

I did all these things in short burst of 5 mins, all through the day.

Howabout some grooming and cuddles?

Thanks for your replies, we have been revisiting all his training, generally his sit, wait, come, find etc pretty good. The only time we have probelms is during his "zoomies" when he's just too manic to listen. On usual days when he's had some physical excercise you can see the zoomies coming if you know what I mean and we can get him in his quiet area or out into the garden before he starts looning around, the problem at the moment I think is the sheer lack of physical excercise, he's going from quiet to loony with nothing inbetween.

The biscuits under cups and the general hiding of biscuits and find is an excellent idea, especially as we can now take his lampshade off and he can get into corners.

I also have a go at training him to fetch named things, this should really get him thinking.

Thanks again.