Getting Hetty spayed: Recovery

We recently had Hetty, our young cockapoo dog, spayed. I wrote about the experiences leading up to the operation and the day of the operation here. This post is all about her recovery…

These are my own experiences as a first-time dog owner, which I wanted to share with other newer dog owners. Obviously for proper advice, you need to contact your vet.

After the operation, Hetty wasn’t her normal self at all. I’d been dreading her getting spayed, but she was actually in a worse state than I’d imagined. Hetty is such a lively dog, but after the operation all her spark had gone. She was just a shell of a dog.

For the first few hours, we just sat with her and tried to make her comfortable. She did the slowest tail wags when someone walked into the room, where normally she would be jumping up and down at them and running round like a lunatic.

She was wearing a body suit (£18 from the vet and worth every penny!) to protect her stitches. The only problem with that was having to undo it for her to go to the toilet. We’d also been told she should only go out for a wee on the lead, to prevent excess movement around her stitches. At about 6:30pm (I’d picked her up from the vet at 4), she managed a big wee in the garden. She didn’t go again that day.

She wasn’t ready to eat (despite having nothing since 8pm the night before), but I roasted some chicken breast pieces and boiled some rice for when she was ready.

As the evening wore on, she became slightly more responsive and started walking around the house a bit more. So at 8:30, we gave her a bit of chicken and rice (this is what the vet recommends for the first day). She would be able to get back to normal food the following day. I was surprised that she wolfed the food down.

Obviously with the anaesthetic there’s always a risk of being sick, so we didn’t give her too much. About 9:30pm, we gave her a bit more. She was clearly very hungry.

My husband had decided she should sleep in our room, so we could keep an eye on her. He put her bed, toys and blanket on the floor. Then the dog who couldn’t jump and wasn’t supposed to jump, jumped straight onto our bed! I tried sleeping with her there, but she kept fidgeting and sometimes walking up and down. I was worried about knocking into her and hurting her and also slightly worried she might be sick. In the end, I had to move to the spare room, otherwise I wouldn’t have got a wink of sleep.

The next morning, I took her out for a wee on the lead. It was pouring with rain, but we stayed out a big longer in case she needed a poo. She didn’t and I got drenched. I gave her the rest of the chicken with some more rice and she wolfed it down again.

We then gave her the medication (Loxicom, an anti-inflammatory) – 0.9ml for a 9kg dog – squirted in her mouth with a syringe. She took it really well, but again there was the worry that she might be sick (worming tablets make her sick).

I couldn’t go running as I was scared to leave her, so just took myself for a five minute walk for some fresh air.

Hetty spent the morning asleep. She often spends the morning asleep, but will jump up every time I move. This was a much deeper sleep caused by medication and pain. She would walk around a little bit, but then go straight back to sleep.

In the afternoon, my mum called round. Hetty barked a bit and shook her whole body when her tail wagged. She also jumped up at both my mum and me. It was nice to see her behaving more like herself, but not so good for her stitches!

I couldn’t get her to drink at all on day two. I tried her bowl, I tried a spoon, I tried her travel water bottle, I even tried scooping it up in my hands. She had one wee in the morning and one in the afternoon. When I undid her bodysuit to wee, she started to mess with her stitches. So we thought she would need both a cone and a lead on to go out for the toilet!

She got the cone on, shook her head repeatedly and pulled at it with her front paws. Then the cone was gone. It clearly wasn’t going to work.

By day three, she started biting me when I undid her bodysuit and did it back up again. Obviously it was causing her a bit of discomfort and she was confused about the whole situation, but it wasn’t fun being bitten five or six times a day.

At her post-op check on day three her wound was a bit red, but not too worrying. We were told to touch gently in the area the following day and if she reacted too much to take her back for more medication. She didn’t have a temperature, so no infection. I was told not to worry too much about her drinking less, as long as she was drinking something.

After her first check-up we started looking at the wound every day. It was remarkable how well it was healing, so we had no concerns with that.

Hetty wasn’t allowed any walks at all for three days. After three days until 10 days, she was just allowed five minute walks on the lead. She was reasonably happy with that and I just left her bodysuit undone for the duration so she could wee and poo easily. We did have a couple of times where she managed to wee on her bodysuit. Of course I should have then washed and dried it, but how would we have protected her stitches then?

I was very pleased that she took her medicine well. In fact, she started licking her lips as soon as she saw the syringe and insisted on continuing to lick the syringe after she’d had her dose.

Generally, I spend all my time with the door open in the daytime, so Hetty can just run in and out. As she wasn’t allowed to just run around the garden, I had to keep it shut. Which wasn’t nice for either of us in 27 degree heat!

We’d been warned she might have a bit of a cough after the operation, due to having a tube down her throat. She actually didn’t start coughing until a few days later and it frightened me a bit as it sounded like she couldn’t breathe. Needless to say, she was absolutely fine!

We’ve spent the last six months trying to get Hetty to gain weight, but it turns out all she needed was an operation! After six days of inactivity, while eating normally, we weighed her and she’d gained 500g.

On day 7, we took her bodysuit off to wash it, as she’d managed to wee on it again. She didn’t seem bothered by her stitches at all, which looked nearly healed. So we kept the suit off for the rest of the day and just put it back on when she went to bed. We kept it off the next day again, but then she started scratching at her stitches, so it went back on until her final post-op check.

A week after the operation, we noticed a small lump next to her scar. It worried me, but as she was fine in herself I thought I would wait until her post-op check in three days to discuss it with the vet.

At her final check, 10 days after being spayed, the vet was happy with her recovery. She wasn’t concerned about the lump and it said it would go down gradually. She could also get back to normal activity gradually, so we decided she could play in the garden and have one 30 minute walk a day, building up to her usual two or three 30 minute walks a day.

We will so pleased Hetty was completely recovered.