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Cat keeps escaping surgery compression vest

5 replies

WuldNahKest · 03/12/2022 21:02

I picked up my cat today after hernia surgery. It was quite severe and seems to have stemmed from a bad spaying operation 11 years ago. She had to go to a specialist for some very expensive surgery.

She was wearing a sort of compression baby vest when I picked her up this morning and is meant to wear it for 10-14 days. When I got her home she had pooped in the vest within half an hour due to pooping during an escape attempt when it was half off her. I washed and dried the vest and put it back on. She has escaped it again.

I can't make it tighter to prevent escape, it's already fairly tight but she's very smart and sort of hooks her back legs in to pull it down from the neck, threading her front paws out as she does through the tiny neck hole, pulling the neck hole down her entire body, over the wound and off her back legs.

What do I do? It's partly compression and partly to stop her getting at her stitches. She hasn't gone for her stitches yet but it's only a matter of time while I sleep.

OP posts:
ivfbabymomma1 · 03/12/2022 21:11

Can you put a harness over the top?

TheLovleyChebbyMcGee · 03/12/2022 21:18

My cat did this! The vest thats supposedly impossible to escape? My cat got her legs pulled in and just rolled around like sausage.

Is the vest just to stop licking the wound? We ended up using a length of tubular bandage and snipped tiny holes for the legs, the pressure held the gauze in place fine, its super stretchy. It looks like this stuff but not sure of the size we used

www.amazon.co.uk/Salmue-Breathable-First-aid-Dressings-Restraint/dp/B07R7KHV36

Toddlerteaplease · 04/12/2022 05:00

My parents cut the legs of their cats. He wore it like a T shirt quite happily. And I lay fist him because it showed all his spare tyres, and made him look like Michelin man.

WuldNahKest · 05/12/2022 10:00

Thank you for the help, it is indeed the "inescapable" one! I can't get a smaller one or it won't fit over her head.

I did try a harness on top but she flopped on the floor and yowled dramatically.

I can't cut it shorter as the operation incision is the entire length of her abdomen from sternum to pubic bone. Her stomach muscles just split down the middle as the spay operation had a central incision rather than off to the side apparently.

She seems OK, she is leaping on things despite trying to keep her still, scratching things, purring and eating. She seems very happy to be home and is waking us up wanting to play in the night.

OP posts:
Defiantlynot41 · 05/12/2022 10:07

I'd keep trying with the harness on top, it obviously works and she's trying to train you out of using it!

Tubular bandage also a good idea

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