Dudley had The Big Boy Operation today. I was able to bring him home the same day, and he is currently snoring in his crate, still pretty drugged up. But the rules of recuperation are going to be challenging - he has to be walked on a leash instead of turned loose in the back yard for TWO WEEKS. We are both going to hate that. And the impossible one - no jumping. Yeah, right. The minute he came in, he jumped onto the couch, and he's still so dopey he lost his balance and almost fell off - I caught him. Tonight he'll have to sleep in the crate, I can't have him jumping on and off my tall bed. This seems like a lot of fuss for what amounts to about 4 stitches on a dog this size. I know there is some more stitching "inside" but I can't remember these restrictions when my golden retriever was neutered. As I recall, he came home and moved a little slowly for 48 hours, and that was it. And he was a whole lot bigger.
I will restrict his activity as much as I can, but he runs like a rabbit and jumps like a kangaroo. This is not going to be easy. It's good that we did this while I am on FMLA myself.
Edited to add: Okay, after he woke up from his 2 hour nap, Dudley is Dudley, he is wide awake and ready to party. I have yelled at him for jumping on and off the furniture, I turned my back for a minute and found him in my room, standing on my bed. He refused to poop unless he could have some privacy so we've abandoned the "must be on a leash" and substituted me standing in the yard discreetly watching him as he sniffs for the appropriate spot. Success. "Small dinner" - please, he is hungry enough to eat one of the cats. I just turned around and he's on his favorite chair. I think I'm going to have faith in his youthful energy and intelligence, and let him do what he wants, within reason. He's in his crate tonight. That's the concession to his invalid status, or mine, because I would like to get a good night's sleep and not worry about him pulling stitches jumping on and off the bed. But that's about as much as I can do about this, short of keeping him sedated for two weeks.
The dog is a lot like his grandma. We don't do invalid well.
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4 comments:
Let him do what he wants and just watch for swelling. If you see swelling larger than a marble, call the vet. If he's in pain, he'll slow down on his own.
Yeah, I am checking the stitches periodically to make sure they look okay, and letting him do what he wants. He's sleeping perched on the back of the loveseat right now. I had to laugh - the dog has longer activity restrictions on him after snipping than I had after brain surgery!
The day I adopted Maggie, I picked her up from the vet's where she had had her "girl surgery." I figured between being sore and scared about going away with someone she didn't know, she would be pretty hesitant. I thought I'd be carrying her up stairs and picking her up to put her into the car for 2 weeks.
No way--first thing she did was jump into my Ford Explorer, a good 3+ feet. When we got home, she climbed the stairs and, once inside, jumped onto both the couch and the bed. She never blinked an eye.
Nothing can slow these dogs down, I swear . . . .
When Oscar had his surgery, he could barely walk down the hall when the vet brought him out to me - he looked like a little woozy drunk, swaying and swerving. He slept soundly that night, and was 100% normal the next evening. I'm not sure what they think we'll do to our dogs if they don't tell us to restrict them (damn, I was going to enter him in a pit fight tonight, but he just got fixed...) but there's not much I could do to keep any of these guys calm, other than the old cast-iron-pan-to-the-back-of-the-head method. Rarely the doctors' recommendation.
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