My cat went into the vet three days ago to get spayed.
She had a lampshade to wear, but she was so unbelievably heartbreakingly miserable with it on, we took it off her yesterday and tried to keep an eye on her.
Every time she goes to bite her stitches, we just give her a poke to stop her, but a few minutes later she’s back nibbling at them again. And now I think she may have managed to get one out!
She’d just been licking the area so it looks a bit damp, but is it supposed to look like that? It looks a little bit open to me. I can’t remember exactly how it looked yesterday.
Is there anything I can do to stop her licking and biting the area? I was thinking maybe there’s something nasty tasting I could put on the area, that would stop her. But I don’t want to put something on that’d make her clean it even more.
We’ll probably phone the vet later, but until it opens, any ideas?
Put the lampshade on her, and wait until the vet opens this morning. That’s what I’d do.
The incision isn’t bleeding, and it doesn’t look at all infected, so I don’t think I’d go to the ER vet for it.
Remember, they give you the lampshade for a reason.
Put the damn e-collar back on her. Leave it there until the vet takes the stitches out. She will manage. I can’t even tell you how many people do this, always to the detriment of the pet. Healing wounds ITCH. Deeply. Bad taste won’t stop the need to get at the ITCH. Only a physical barrier will do. Put the collar on NOW. Call the vet later.
My husband and I had to take the e-collar off our dog when she had hip surgery, and it was a miserable pain in the neck. I had wondered why she was the only animal in the vet’s that wasn’t wearing one when we went to pick her up… they handed it to us with her care instructions but never mentioned why she didn’t have it on. We found out when we put it on her and she thrashed so hard for so long we were more worried about her messing up her hip by thrashing than we were about the stitches.
To keep her from tearing out her stitches, we slept in shifts for over a week, until her incision healed and she wasn’t going after it any more. So you can do it, but only with a 24/7 commitment to watching the cat. We were only able to do it because my husband telecommuted and the dog was confined to her crate on the vet’s orders.
Unless your cat is causing more harm with the collar, it’s really not worth leaving it off. A couple days of an unhappy cat is better than an infection.
Cats are utter masters at looking miserable in e-collars. Unless they are thrashing around enough to pull a stitch, in which case they need to be temporarily restrained, ignore it. Eventually they adjust.
I just went through weeks of a collared cat. At first he acted alternately paralyzed and freaked out ( while my other cat followed him around swiping at him and hissing ). By the next week he ( and my other cat ) were blase about it. He even ate in it without difficulty.
I am not sure if this would work for a cat or not, but when my dog had surgery last, instead of an e-collar they gave us this inflatable tube thingy that we rented instead of buying. I think the price ended up being about the same and It was much easier for him to eat and drink and he could even comfortably rest his head on it. I would put the e-collar back on and then call the vet and ask about other options.