Our lovely 2 year old springer has just had emergency surgery to remove what turned out to be a chunk of corn on the cob, that we had no idea she had eaten, from her intestines. She is expected to come home tomorrow roughly 48 hours after her surgery, which was straight forward but she had been very poorly for two days before. She currently has a feeding tube and may come home with that depending on how she tolerates food early on. I was just wondering how other people managed this recovery phase. She’s young and bouncy and I’m so anxious about keeping her calm and preventing jumping as she starts to feel better in herself.
The current plan is to empty the living room of anything she might jump on and put her crate in there and some floor cushions and bean bags for when we are in there with her. I’ll need to somehow block her from jumping on the top of the crate too.
I have a lively child with additional needs who is home full time to somehow juggle in all of this so the kitchen diner will become our main living space so she is not accidentally exciting the dog too soon and she isn’t constantly being disturbed by people in there. I’ll set a camera up in front of the dogs crate for when she doesn’t have someone with her.
She usually lives in the kitchen diner the majority of the time but I just think the temptation to jump up at the worktops or table too soon will be huge. I could try and block off the kitchen end but I think she’ll just jump up at, and even more worryingly over, anything I use to block it off. She can have a bit more freedom in the living room without worrying about that. I am worried she’ll be unsettled with the room change but I can’t think of a safer way.
Husband is going to sleep in living room with her for first night or two to help her settle. She is used to being in a crate but only for short periods and we haven’t really used it much for the last few months.
I’d really appreciate hearing anyone else’s experiences and any suggestions for helping her recovery, keeping her occupied while on strict rest, and timelines for getting back to normal activity levels (I’ve read anywhere between 2 and 6 weeks or more).
I’m also worried about getting her in and out of her car crate without hurting her. It’s a fairly small door but if I don’t get her out I know she’ll try and jump.