Spay Update

[puppygalore]

I know a couple of people were also looking for tips when I was, so here's how it was for us. Pup wasn't allowed to eat after 10pm on Sunday, on Monday morning she went to the vet at 9am and they called by 1.30pm to say she was awake and fine. DH collected her at 5pm and the vet lifted Pup into his boot crate as she wasn't allowed to jump up.

For that first afternoon she was quiet and sleepy, had a tiny bit of food and little pebble of poo, but wees as normal. She wanted to sleep but the soft plastic cone from the vet was awful. She couldn't rest her head and hated it and kept bashing it on her crate door when she tried to go to bed. We had to sort of shove her in the crate but once in she slept fine overnight. However she's now freaked out around her crate because the cone made such a horrible bashing noise when she got in and out, and now will not listen to her old 'go to bed' command. She's too scared. She also couldn't access her water bowl overnight in the big vet cone, so I was really worried about that all night. Luckily Prime delivered us a dog vest and an inflatable 'cone' by Tuesday night. By Tuesday afternoon she was grabbing her ball and trying to play when I took her out for the toilet, it was hard keeping her calm but thankfully she seemed to tire quickly and was happy to rest again. No poos yesterday, but back to normal today, though not eating as much.

The 'suitical' in Large was fine for her in length (approx 25-26kg Lab) but baggy round the bum, however it covered the wound fine. Today DH took her back to the vet for a check up and all is healing well. Daft sod didn't roll it up for her wee so she peed all over it 🙄 so that's currently drying and we are trying the inflatable collar which (touch wood) after a few mental moments she seems to have accepted. So my top tip would be abandon the vet cone and get 2 suits, or as we did 1 suit and 1 soft cone or collar.

She's got a bully stick and is now resting again. Here's a pic of the poor girl today

Ah lovely thanks for this as it's something we have to look forward to at some point! That padded collar looks much nicer than the traditional plastic cones. Glad she is recovering well.

Interesting reading as my baby was spayed today. She has a leotard not a cone. She is completely out of it tonight poor girl, but was awake earlier and managed some food.

She has trembled all afternoon and went to hide in a hedge when we got home. I think she thought she was dying.

Hopefully she'll be better tomorrow 🤞🏻

Ah @Darkchocolateandcoffee I hope she's doing better today! My girl is back to being bonkers so the main difficulty now is keeping her calm and letting it heal! A few moments after I took the above photo she ate the bloody inflatable collar so we are now rotating 2 bodysuits

Thanks for the info, good to know! My five year old lurcher rescue was due to have her op this week, but we've rebooked it for a keyhole op instead next month.

@puppygalore Did your girl have the standard or keyhole procedure? Hoping for a more comfortable recovery with the keyhole, but don't have much experience!

@rbe78 We had keyhole spay on our 2 year old working cocker last year. We had to stay in the car and she ran out of the vets to us after the op and tried to jump on the sofa multiple times. Apart from being a bit sleepy she was back to normal the next day. No cone or suit needed with my vets.

@rbe78 she had the standard procedure and it's healed perfectly. I did want keyhole but my vet does not do that, there is one that does not too far away but the vet said they only refer dogs there if there's a case of high anxiety or other factors. She was on a painkiller for 5 days afterwards, that finished on Saturday and she was fairly docile (well as docile as a Lab puppy can get!) until Sunday morning, up til then she'd done only 1 tiny walk on Friday and Sat and wasn't too fussed about playing. Then Sunday came it was like she was 100% back to her old self. She's desperately wanting to play even though it's 30 here today and I was hoping that would calm her down a bit! But no. She had a little walk earlier this morning but by lunchtime was raring to go again and going bonkers in the garden. I'm hoping the vet gives her the all-clear at her check up on Weds as I can't really contain her much longer!