A few qu's about spaying

[stirling]

Hi everyone,
My girl (8 months) is being spayed tomorrow and I'm all worried about a few things.

How bad is the cone? She hated things like collars, the silly dinky Christmas hat we put on her for all of three minutes... Etc
I understand its to prevent infection but with my previous cat twenty years ago, this wasn't given after spaying.

Will she really be prone to UTIs as the vet indicated? I find this so sad. Of course I'll up the water intake etc but the suffering... I'm a BPS patient myself and it really saddens me to think she might suffer.

Are they really prone to weight gain after spaying? She's a persian chinchilla indoor cat.

Thank you for any advice

Mine was a nervous cat I took on when she was 8 months old.
She was distraught in the cone. She raced and backed into the corner between the wardrobe and the wall and stayed there. By 9pm I was so worried that she hadn’t had anything to eat or drink since the evening before I tried hand feeding & spooning water to her. She wouldn’t have a drop.
I took the cone off and she immediately raced to her bowl. I felt awful. I never put it back on and just kept an eye on her & stopped her every time she tried to lick at her stitches.
She is a very nervous cat though. I’m the only one in our house who’s knee she sits on & even I can’t pick her up.

She has gone a little chunky but she does have a few treats.

She hasn’t had a uti afaik.

Hang on, your vet said spaying would make her prone to UTIs?! What utter bollocks. What sort of vet is this??

I'm with a specialist neuter clinic and we never put cones or body suits on the cats we spay and it doesn't cause any problems. Our stitches are internal and not visible though, so that might make a difference. And we do it 'keyhole' so the scar is barely a centimetre, max 2cm long. If your vet does a big incision and you can see visible stitches then I can see why a cone might be recommended. However I still wouldn't use one, as cats hate them so much, and I would just keep an eye on how she behaves with the wound.

No they are not prone to weight gain after spaying. A cat that is constantly having litters will have so much strain put on her body that she needs a lot of food to compensate, so will need less once that trauma is over. But that isn't the case here. Of course all cats tend to have more of a tendency to gain weight as they age, but then you just feed less.

Persians are prone to weight gain as they are extremely lazy. (Or mine Are)

The only thing I can think of regarding the UTIs is some newish research which apparently shows that male cats neutered very young (4 months or less as opposed to 6) may be more prone to bladder blockages. But that has nothing whatsoever to do with spaying females.

We have spayed females. Never had a UTI.
We did use cones as one of them tried to chew her stitches out. A suit would have been better.
I wouldn’t hesitate to spay a cat. So much better for them. And if you haven’t already I would microchip at the same time. Just in case she ever does get out.
My pair recovered soooo quickly.

Thank you ever so much for your kind responses.
thecatneuterer your post has really made me sit up and think. I met the vet some weeks back and was not too impressed by some other points he made...

Argh. Keeping my fingers crossed for tomorrow. Will enquire about the scar and incision

My kitten has just been spayed, she is tiny at 5 months old looks like a 2 month old kitten, vet thinks she won't get any bigger.
I bought one of those post op body suits but the vet said they don't put cones on them anymore., the stitches are all internal so they can't be chewed.
I put her in the body suit, she lay on the floor for five minutes looking outraged, then ran upstairs where there was serious miaowing - then she came downstairs minus the body suit.
Recovery was very quick, she didn't stop bouncing around for a second.

Shehasadiamondinthesky your story made me smile. She sounds so cute

I hope it all goes well OP.

I never put a cone on my female and she recovered just fine not all cats bother with their stitches.

We got the inflatable collar which is much smaller and more comfortable. They kept it on night 1, and night 2 - I took it off in the day.

Thank you, really helpful

Word of warning, if you have an open fireplace make sure you block it off when she comes back from the vet......... stitches and sooty chimneys are not a good mix!

I am sure she will be fine, I was always worried about mine, chimneys, jumping up onto sofas, licking stitches etc but they all sailed through, enjoyed the special poorly cat dinners and forgave me when the special poorly cat dinners stopped and they were back to well cat dinners.

Your little one is worthy of the name ''CAT'' by her decisive actions.

Your story made me smile, too. :)

Did you go ahead? How did your cat fare?
Hope she is recovered and well .

My little cat hated her plastic cone, and managed to escape from several body suits, and she actually did get a bit of an infection after some vigorous self-cleaning. Which led to antibiotics, and a cloth cone, which (tied tightly) she managed to cope with. So, worth keeping an eye on the wound?