Dog will be 14 months at time of surgery. I opted not to have him “fixed” earlier due to some opinions (from one vet and info retrieved on the internet) suggesting that waiting past one year age was in the large breed dog’s best interest (it had to do with maturing of growth plates and decreasing risk for certain other disease/medical issues, if I am recalling correctly).
I don’t really have a burning desire to have him neutered as it is an elective procedure, however, culture here in the USA seems to dictate that it be done. He attends doggie daycare while I work and the folks who own the place require that I have him neutered. He is scheduled for June 6th and I was informed by the vet that there will be a 14 day recovery period needed where he has to rest (no jumping, no attending daycare). So, I’ve taken time off from work to provide him home health care.
Question #1: Anyone have a recommendation for something other than the “cone of shame”/Elizabethan collar? I see alternative collars on Amazon & Chewy, but the reviews aren’t great. My dog is a 65 lb. lab.
Question #2: How do I keep a highly energetic young dog from being active? Any ideas for entertaining him while he recovers?
Question #3: They are sending him home with pain meds - will these make him sleepy?
Question #4: When will he begin to feel better? Is he going to feel awful for a few days? 2 weeks?
He is my first dog, so I am headed into this without any prior experience - any tips/advice will be greatly appreciated!
Fourteen days post-neutering … sounds pretty excessive, to me, unless the vet is expecting complications. Neutering on a male dog is a relatively simple procedure. The main thing is to make sure the stitches don’t pull or get infected.
I would discuss sedatives for the first few days. The painkillers might help with that; it depends what they are. The cone of shame is helpful, especially before the skin has closed. Once the incision heals over, the end is in sight.
Also, keep track of his peeing & pooping, post-anesthesia. It might be a couple days before he eats & produces normally. Be sure to ask your vet what to expect about the intake/output system.
Personally, I would expect that the recovery time will be much closer to a week than 2 weeks, unless the dog is a ravening derp monster. But your vet is playing it safe in his recommendations, which is not a bad thing.
Thank you both for your responses.
I don’t believe the vet is expecting any complications - she ordered a blood panel to be done a few days prior to the surgery. He is a young and healthy dog, so I am hopeful he will weather this as well as can be expected.
He is not crate trained - I did try to do it as soon as I brought him home, but there quickly occurred an unfortunate incident where I had placed him in his crate and went into another room (to cook) - a moment later I heard the most awful crying and ran back to him to find that he had gotten his little teeth/mouth caught around the crate bars. I got rid of the crate that day, because what if that happened again when I wasn’t home? His cry broke my heart (yes, I am a wimp).
Is it a normal neutering prcedure - meaning, his testicals are both descended, and there’s no need to go into the abdomen? If so, more than a day of restricted activity seems unnecessary. I have never needed the cone to prevent excessive licking, but some dogs may.
You may be opting to have his stomach fixed internally in his abdominal cavity to help prevent bloat later in life. This is something that takes about 2 weeks to recover from. He should be on a leash with you, or in his crate if this is the case. I would look into sedatives frankly, to get him through this.
The inflatable collars instead of the giant cone are a good idea for large breeds since with the cones you get one, enormous awkward creature, who will knock things over and make messes. They also won’t be able to fit into their crates. It he does lick too much, I would look into alternatives like the inflatable.
My doggie was not just neutered, he had an undescended testical the vet had to go searching for so it looked like he had been neutered and spayed, poor baby. he got pain meds and the vet also recommended giving him a Benadryl every so many hours to keep him quiet. He is not a quiet dog but he did sleep more than usual for a couple of days. His crate was not an option because with the collar on he couldn’t get into it. But even with this excessive surgery he was okay long before 14 days.
With the type of dog you have, it seems most likely that the challenge will be keeping him as calm and subdued as you can manage, in the first couple or three days when the incision is still relatively fresh. For male dogs having an uncomplicated procedure, it’s MUCH less stress on their body than it is for a female.
Not letting him rip himself open in the first couple of days is really just about all you’d actually worry about. He’ll be fine.
When the vet said “14 days”, s/he probably meant that it would be that long before any stitches would be removed. Your dog will be fine, and really, you will not be sorry you had it done. He won’t care either, really.
Yeah, it’s a more serious operation on females. But when our Simone, a female, was spayed, she came home and charged out of the car, ran up the steps, and began playing normally, stitches and all. I would be surprised if your guy was any different.
You did the right thing. Lots of dogs have been seriously injured trying to rip themselves out of a crate. (I’m not saying never crate a dog, just that they need to be trained to tolerate it, and if they refuse to the point of trying to break open the crate then it’s best not to force the issue.)
An alternative that we did with our large male greyhound when he had bladder surgery was to set up the x-pen in the living room. A little inconvenient, but he was also a no-crates-for-me pup. He tolerated being in the x-pen just fine.
Rather than using the plastic cone of shame (they really impede the dog eating and drinking and the poor things get stuck on everything) I highly recommend the inflatable Zen collar. The fabric it’s covered with is tough as nails and doesn’t show dirt or get anything stuck to it, it has better peripheral vision than most collars and the dog can sleep, eat, drink and do anything basically unimpeded. My big dog (lab/husky mix, 75lbs) is wearing one 24/7 right now to prevent him from chewing hot spots all over his ass as he does most years in spring. He’s very resistant to any sort of restraint (still has a scar on his face from when he got himself out of a Gentle Leader) but he tolerates the Zen collar just fine. They run about 20-25 bucks on Amazon. The medium worked fine for my 55lb Border collie mix but the big dog can reach right around that one and needs a large instead.
Our vet gave us a few days of doggie Ativan to give our current raucous big boy a few days of quiet healing.
You sound a bit worried. Over the last 30 years I’ve had 15 or so doggies neutered/spayed and have never experienced a problem beyond some sneaky stitch licking (and boy dog fixing is less invasive and complex than the girls’ version). I hope this is a bit reassuring.
Maybe they didn’t get all of Baxter’s cojones, he has been a real beast of late. Maybe I’ll buy him a train ticket to go stay with Uncle Gato for a few months.
Hee hee! Too bad Bax isn’t white and wears a weatherman blazer.
We’re counting the days until our two juvenile delinquents leave for their three week doggie boot camp. Our old collies are about to pack their bags and find an apartment away from them.
