Just Been Spayed - How On Earth Do I Keep Her Calm For The Next 9 Days.

Evie

Evie

Experienced Member
K, so as you all probably already know, poor Evie B got micro-chipped and spayed yesterday (not even 24 hours ago). Poor little darling was that nervous that after I left the clinic she apparently threw up while she was muzzled so they obviously had to take the muzzle off and then try and get it back on without my help - but other than that, apparently everything went well, came out of the anaesthetic well. This vet handled her very well. They said that if it wasn't for the fact that she was there to be spayed - so they really had to do all the premeds soon - they wouldnt have muzzled her and would have worked slowly with her instead with treats and stuff, but as she was being spayed she wasnt allowed to eat anything which makes making friends with Evie hard. But they were still good about it, they didn't cage her before the operation - they let her hang out in the office on lead so that she could walk around rather than feeling trapped :) And then they didn't do their usual post-op checkup of her until we were there with her so that Evie didn't have to be handled by strangers to reduce her stress :)

ANYWAY - the point of this post - Last night Evie was very dopey and sore which is to be expected - and it was great (the dopey part not the sore part), all she did was sleep on her bed and we made sure someone was always with her so that she didn't stress.

Come this morning, she's back to her normal self :cautious: Jumping, kitten stalking, running around...... She's supposed to be 'calm' for the next 9 days so that she can heal. The vet warned us that she could be all dopey and drugged up for 48 hours afterwards but she didn't even last 12. How on earth do I keep the crazy ball of black and white calm?

I've bought her a collection of chewy things such as cow ears (all dried naturally - don't worry no chemicals involved), tendons, pig trotter etc. but she wont spend the entire 9 days just chewing on things:rolleyes: . Any other ideas?

I've been tempted to put the bunny on the front lawn in a small cage so that she can sit there all day staring at him LOL. She DOES love staring at bunnies.:D :whistle:

Any thoughts and ideas would be great - also any low activity/movement tricks I can teach her to mentally exhaust her too would be great :)

The vet did tell us that taking her on small walks is probably good idea because it will use some of her crazy energy in a controlled manner, but I obviously don't want to walk her for another couple of days.

I'm guessing Kikopups videos on 'settle' would probably be something I should look at.. but trying to settle with this bloody kitten around will be near impossible, because Evie just zones out - on the plus side, her kitty stalking isn't really what i'd call being energetic.. she spends most of the time standing like a statue or walking circles around the kitty to make sure it can't get away
 
648117

648117

Honored Member
The day after Holly got speyed and microchipped she was way more hyped up then normal because she was reacting to the fentenol patch on her arm (pain killer) so she just ran around constantly looking crazy with dilated eyes. She was really wired and couldn't sleep at all.
She's always pretty active, but that patch really made her insane.
We were so worried that she would pop her stitches because of all the running and jumping she was doing. We practically had to beg the vet to take the patch off because she hadn't slept was really not looking good.

After the patch was removed she calmed down a lot to normal levels of activity. I didn't take her for walks but she did chew a lot and managed to heal alright dispite her extreme activity in the first couple of days after surgery (there was just a little bit of bruising around the stitches that came up about a week after the surgery).
 
tigerlily46514

tigerlily46514

Honored Member
LOVED Lisa's links, hope you do read them! Nothing to add, those are really really great links!
just wanted to say:
KUDOS ON SPAYING YOUR DOG, EVIE!!
and for microchipping the dog, too!!

and good luck trying to keep Evie down for 9 days, wow, and wow.


Besides doing a lot of training, i mean a LOT of training for Buddy,
i remember when he was neutered, we were on the floor a lot, with him, trying to keep him hanging around beside us, (not doing laps like he wanted to:rolleyes: ) as much as we could.

We played gentle version of tuggie toy, gave him a lesson, played with him, gave him a lesson, got him to lie down a lot beside us, had him carry items back and forth between us (he LOVES doing that) more lessons,
got an entire BAG of new toys at Goodwill or yardsales, for 50 cents each, taught him the NAME of each toy, too,
and hid the toys for him to find,
but, seems WE were on the floor a lot for a week:ROFLMAO: , keeping an eye on him to keep him near us and fairly sedentary as much as we could.


for real, with so so much nonstop att'n, Buddy was half-glad to rest and gnaw on his new toys,
once we'd let him rest!:ROFLMAO:
 
Evie

Evie

Experienced Member
Thanks for the ideas :)

Sorry I only just saw the replies for this thread because for some reason I didn't get an email notification for it (which I heavily rely on so i remember to come look lol)

I think we might have to try some free shaping... I've been wanting to capture her yawning, so might be able to start on that LATE tonight if she's willing to offer it to me :)
 
tigerlily46514

tigerlily46514

Honored Member
//"I've been wanting to capture her yawning, so might be able to start on that LATE tonight if she's willing to offer it to me"//


cool idea,
you might try squealing around like you won the lottery, to see if that causes Evie to yawn at you, so you can capture it with a click/treat.
let me know how that works out, i've never done this. I do verbally praise my dog for offering that calming signal appropriately, to encourage him to use calming signals, like around other dogs, etc.

when i yawn at my dog, he sometimes yawns back to me, too.


My dog also yawns to self-calm when we get ready to go for a walk.:LOL:
for real,
he gets excited, and all by himself, he yawns to calm his own self down, it's his idea. I am calm, but he is self-calming his own self! too funny to see it.
 
Evie

Evie

Experienced Member
tigerlily46514 said:
//"I've been wanting to capture her yawning, so might be able to start on that LATE tonight if she's willing to offer it to me"//


cool idea,
you might try squealing around like you won the lottery, to see if that causes Evie to yawn at you, so you can capture it with a click/treat.
let me know how that works out, i've never done this. I do verbally praise my dog for offering that calming signal appropriately, to encourage him to use calming signals, like around other dogs, etc.

when i yawn at my dog, he sometimes yawns back to me, too.


My dog also yawns to self-calm when we get ready to go for a walk.:LOL:
for real,
he gets excited, and all by himself, he yawns to calm his own self down, it's his idea. I am calm, but he is self-calming his own self! too funny to see it.
Click to expand...
I'm afraid that if i get hyped up that Evie will too.... she is VERY easy to hype up :p

We just did some training.... it WAS going to be shaping - but Evie decided that licking my little sister to death was much more fun, so i started clicking and treating a lick (kiss) from Evie after my sister made the 'kisses' noise. So my sister got covered in kisses. Evie thought it was the best thing ever. Not only did she get to kill my sister with kisses like she wanted to but she also got treats for it!
 
Evie

Evie

Experienced Member
I've tried yawning at Evie before and she just looks at me as though i'm an idiot. I'll try it again later though :) I think it'd be really cool to have her yawning on cue and I have seen it done before :p
 
Dogster

Dogster

Honored Member
GREAT links, Lisa!!!!:D

If nothing works, maybe you can ask the vet to drug her for 9 days so she'll sleep.:ROFLMAO::whistle::rolleyes: Just kidding!!!!

I think easy trick training that doesn't involve moving around too much can keep her engaged. Now you have an excuse to buy her new toys, LOL:LOL:
 
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