All three girls are being spayed today!

[KarinMurphy]

As my three bitches all came into season together the vet recommended they were all spayed at the same time. Now that the time has come
I'm panicking a little bit.

it's going to be chaos isn't it? Three dogs wearing cones of shame, running around the house. :)

Has anyone got any handy hints for making it through this? Actually any reassurance you can give would be greatly received.

Also, a thought occured to me last night. They are fairly easy going dogs, Curly Coated Retriever, Labrador and Lab/Springer cross. So far we've had no problems with them all being female. There were a few scuffles when they were in early season but I don't think anyone even made contact. With the hormonal changes of spaying are they more or less likely to fight?

I've been googling and can't find much info. I suppose fairly few people end up with multiple girls of similar ages. Mine are 2 years, 1 1/2 and 1.

Anyway, I'm off to the vets before they get so hungry they eat me.

Don't want to read and run but I imagine all your girls are through their ops by now. It's going to be like a recovery ward in your house today. I found my girl slept most of the day and night, she was home around 2pm and had a small drink before retiring to bed. She had a little light supper of cooked chicken then slept through until the next day. She was pretty much her normal self and didn't have a cone on at all. She didn't lick her wound much but we were vigulant, how easy that would be with three is hard to tell.

I admire you having three bitches, we have two and they have to be kept apart pretty much all the time as the wee one would literally kill the larger one and I imagine she would only take so much before getting stuck in too! We were warned about bitches in one home as it's not if they will fight but when as it will just happen one day. They say dogs fight to breed and bitches fight to breath so will never ever forget :( I would be careful that spaying does not alter the pack order and harmony, keep an eye on this as I do think it will.

In the meantime enjoy your nursing duties and hope all your patients are well behaved :)

Thanks Red.

The vet has just phoned and they are all done and can be collected at 5. Apparently they all went without a hitch.

I work from home and have put their soft beds in my office so I can keep an eye on them during the day and I'll be sleeping in with them at night for a few days.

Not altering the pack order is partly why the vet wanted to do them all together. She felt that if just one of them was done and the other two were fine there could be some ganging up happening.

I SO didn't plan to have three bitches and the fact that they are all similar breeds and close together in age is a real worry. I have lots of room and many stairgates so they could all be kept separate if necessary but I'm really hoping that it doesn't come to that.

We had two bitches together before and although they could be touchy over food or treats they mainly started fights with our young male golden retriever and we didn't get full on bitch fights. When he died they were 7 and 9 and seemed to have grown past the fighting stage.

I hope they're all doing well

Just to add an optimistic note - we had two lab bitches when I was a child. They adored each other and never even had so much as a scuffle let alone a full-on fight. The younger one copied and deferred to the elder who was much feistier but there was never any problem

I've had two hitches together and they were fine too. They had the occasional scrap over the dog basket (even though they had one each) but adored one another and when the oldest one died, the other was devastated :(

I hope they are all ok :) yesterday was one expensive day for you, I imagine!

Thanks for the replies. It's reassuring to hear of other bitches who got on well with each other.

They all seem to be recovering well. We're getting to the annoying stage where they feel better and want to rampage but the incision still needs to heal.

So far there has been very little grumpiness. Beds are the main contentious item here too Owllady. It's always the biggest dog who wants the smallest bed. Lord knows why! The main problem is stopping them from washing each others stitches. I had to give up on the cones. They were positively lethal with them. :)

Iit wasn't actually too bad money wise. My Dad (bless him), because the Lab was his and he couldn't cope with her, paid for a full half of the total as a thank you for taking her on and in addition my son works at Pets at Home and gets a 20% staff discount at the vets. Made it a lot more affordsble.

I'm glad they are okay! I get you 27th the cones, oww when they run into you!

I do find titles like this, on a parenting website, disturbing.

I frequently do a double take!

Hope they're all feeling better soon!