How long must we endure this torture (dog edition)?
July 15, 2023 1:59 PM Subscribe
Lexie is a new-to-us dog, as of six weeks ago, and was just spayed this week. She is wound up like an eight-day clock and has no intention of staying calm so she can heal. How long do we *really* need to enforce these restrictions?
Her spaying went well, despite her advanced age (six years old) and her incision looks great. She isn't bothering the incision so we dispensed with the bodysuit. But she is accustomed to taking two+ mile brisk walks with me every morning and, without them, she is too full of energy: pushing the barricades away from the steps so she can navigate them herself, getting into mischief, etc. Even 25mg of Trazodone every morning isn't really keeping her calm and I don't want to keep her on a leash 24/7.
The vet told us the recovery period was about two weeks. Do we *really* need to restrict her for that long? We've only had her a short time, so don't know her well enough yet to be confident "trusting the wisdom of the dog". Can you please share your own wisdom/experiences/advice with a post-spay dog?
Her spaying went well, despite her advanced age (six years old) and her incision looks great. She isn't bothering the incision so we dispensed with the bodysuit. But she is accustomed to taking two+ mile brisk walks with me every morning and, without them, she is too full of energy: pushing the barricades away from the steps so she can navigate them herself, getting into mischief, etc. Even 25mg of Trazodone every morning isn't really keeping her calm and I don't want to keep her on a leash 24/7.
The vet told us the recovery period was about two weeks. Do we *really* need to restrict her for that long? We've only had her a short time, so don't know her well enough yet to be confident "trusting the wisdom of the dog". Can you please share your own wisdom/experiences/advice with a post-spay dog?
When my border collie was spayed earlier this year, I was told to keep her on leash for 10 days. She seemed to feel completely fine and ready to resume normal activities after a couple of days. We kept her on leash (or on a long line) for most of the recommended recovery period but after about 8 days it just began to seem ridiculous. It wasn't like there was something magical about the 10 day mark that meant that activity that was definitely harmful on day 10 would be definitely not harmful on day 11. While on leash or inside the house she was able to jump around and move her body in vigorous ways and she didn't act like it was hurting her. It seemed unlikely to me that she would hurt herself on a typical off-leash walk in the woods where she was in control of what she was doing and no one would be forcing her to run or jump if it felt painful. So I let her off leash. But I did wait until after the 10 day period (maybe even a little more than 10 days) before letting her meet up with her dog friend, since they tend to play a little rough at times.
posted by Redstart at 2:55 PM on July 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Redstart at 2:55 PM on July 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
I would definitely ask the vet. Our foster had good healing for a few days and we got a little lax, and then it went to hell with it opening up a bit and starting to weep, so we had to wait even longer.
YMMV but I’d check with the vet and they may give you the go ahead. If not, in addition to what Lesser said, we had a bunch of frozen kongs and puzzle food toys and snuffle mats. All food was fed in toys pretty much. Long sniffing walks with a shorter leash where we would scatter food in a safe grassy area because she wanted to run and pull. Good luck, it’s tough but will be over soon!
posted by buttonedup at 2:56 PM on July 15, 2023 [5 favorites]
YMMV but I’d check with the vet and they may give you the go ahead. If not, in addition to what Lesser said, we had a bunch of frozen kongs and puzzle food toys and snuffle mats. All food was fed in toys pretty much. Long sniffing walks with a shorter leash where we would scatter food in a safe grassy area because she wanted to run and pull. Good luck, it’s tough but will be over soon!
posted by buttonedup at 2:56 PM on July 15, 2023 [5 favorites]
We were also told to keep the incision site dry for 10 days but once she was off leash of course there was nothing stopping her from lying down in a puddle or stream. The incision seemed well healed by that point so I just didn't worry about it and it was fine.
posted by Redstart at 2:57 PM on July 15, 2023
posted by Redstart at 2:57 PM on July 15, 2023
Best answer: Seconding asking the vet about the brisk walks, and doing as much mental stimulation with her as possible.
When our high energy working dog puppy got neutered, the vet did tell us to keep him quiet for two weeks, but when we asked how we were supposed to do that with this particular puppy they were like, haha yeah that’s going to be hard! It was a bit of a nightmare to try to keep him calm (puppy plus very energetic type of dog).
Eventually when we pressed for more realistic expectations, we were told that the BIG things to avoid were stairs, jumping, and roughhousing with other dogs. We took him for walks, as sedate as possible, kept him away from other dogs who would get him excited. We focused on not letting him go up and down stairs and not letting him jump up or down from anything, and took a break from play dates with his little doggy friends. If he had zoomies around the house, well then he did. We did that for two weeks and that was enough time for him to heal.
But check with your vet.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 3:01 PM on July 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
When our high energy working dog puppy got neutered, the vet did tell us to keep him quiet for two weeks, but when we asked how we were supposed to do that with this particular puppy they were like, haha yeah that’s going to be hard! It was a bit of a nightmare to try to keep him calm (puppy plus very energetic type of dog).
Eventually when we pressed for more realistic expectations, we were told that the BIG things to avoid were stairs, jumping, and roughhousing with other dogs. We took him for walks, as sedate as possible, kept him away from other dogs who would get him excited. We focused on not letting him go up and down stairs and not letting him jump up or down from anything, and took a break from play dates with his little doggy friends. If he had zoomies around the house, well then he did. We did that for two weeks and that was enough time for him to heal.
But check with your vet.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 3:01 PM on July 15, 2023 [2 favorites]
Sigh. We (vet medical professionals) recommend 10-14 days because yes, that’s really how long it takes the incision to heal. Where I practice we advise 10-14 days of short leash walks only for bathroom, and sutural removal out in that window if there are external sutures (stitches on the outside). Yes I’ve seen cat and dog guts on the outside because people could not follow directions/ read the discharge papers. In your case, this likely wouldn’t happen but you’re risking infection and dehiscence by not following your vets directions. Trazadone can be given up to three times a day and there is a wide dosing range, so she may just need a little more sedation.
Why can’t people just listen to the vet :(
posted by OsoMeaty at 7:08 PM on July 15, 2023 [14 favorites]
Why can’t people just listen to the vet :(
posted by OsoMeaty at 7:08 PM on July 15, 2023 [14 favorites]
I am also team "high enrichment, low movement"; we've been through heartworm treatment with several fosters. This was all back in the days before you could just buy puzzle mats and games, but we would make "scavenger hunts" around the house of little treats or kibble they had to sniff out and uncover without jumping up or crawling under things, and the hunt would end with a peanut butter kong or bully stick or some other thing they had to work at extensively.
My final dog, through heartworm treatment and late spay and terminal illness, seemed to get a lot of enjoyment out of pretty sedentary sniff sessions, either just sitting with me (leashed, when she was young and rowdy) outside or having a slow browse around the front yard to really take in all the local news. I also had windows at nose-height that I would crack for her. Once she got the message that we weren't going anywhere she seemed fairly content to just nose the air and watch birds.
posted by Lyn Never at 6:56 AM on July 16, 2023 [1 favorite]
My final dog, through heartworm treatment and late spay and terminal illness, seemed to get a lot of enjoyment out of pretty sedentary sniff sessions, either just sitting with me (leashed, when she was young and rowdy) outside or having a slow browse around the front yard to really take in all the local news. I also had windows at nose-height that I would crack for her. Once she got the message that we weren't going anywhere she seemed fairly content to just nose the air and watch birds.
posted by Lyn Never at 6:56 AM on July 16, 2023 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Give more Trazodone. Give it more times a day. My 20 kg dog was getting 100-150 mg 2-3x a day. It has a pretty wide range of efficacy so your Rx might be on the lower side. Though it also may just be less sedating for your dog.
There's nothing magical about day 14 but your dog's incision is still trash in terms of keeping the skin together. It's shocking but wounds actually take a long time to heal. When my most recent dog was spayed I went into the weeds in wound research and the recovery of tensile strength of skin is a logistic/S curve. It's not like it's gaining 5% of original strength each day, and at day 10 it's at 35% and day 14 it's at 55% of original strength. It's really only around day 14 where you start seeing the strength of that wound approaching anything greater than 1-3% or the original skin strength. It might be day 10 for your dog, but why not give it a few extra days. Then over the next two weeks the skin starts to strengthen more and more rapidly, then levels off again a month later.
And it's not always guts spilling out that causes problems. A small tear in the deeper layers of the wound where the subcutaneous tissue was previously well approximated (i.e. close together), or strain causing trauma where the sutures are pulling on the opposite sides of the incision, is going to cause some inflammation that might hurt or itch. And the dog has only one instinctive response to that, and that is to lick lick lick lick. If the skin isn't too far separated it could still heal by secondary intention and not fully come apart (dehiscence) but... your going to have to watch to make sure your dog isn't licking it for weeks now, or giving a lot more NSAIDs and antihistamines than you otherwise would.
That being said... brisk walking probably doesn't cause as much an increase in intra-peritoneal pressure or involve as much activation of the obliques as running or jumping. And skin is pretty strong compared to the demands we place on it, 1-2 % of its tensile strength might be all your dog needs to handle a walk (not run!). I carried my 45 pound dog up and down the two flights of stairs for two weeks, but I didn't keep it on a leash in my yard because I figured, if I didn't have a frisbee, she was probably more likely to expend energy going to sniff every blade of grass than running in circle, but that wouldn't risk her wound too much.
posted by midmarch snowman at 5:07 PM on July 17, 2023
There's nothing magical about day 14 but your dog's incision is still trash in terms of keeping the skin together. It's shocking but wounds actually take a long time to heal. When my most recent dog was spayed I went into the weeds in wound research and the recovery of tensile strength of skin is a logistic/S curve. It's not like it's gaining 5% of original strength each day, and at day 10 it's at 35% and day 14 it's at 55% of original strength. It's really only around day 14 where you start seeing the strength of that wound approaching anything greater than 1-3% or the original skin strength. It might be day 10 for your dog, but why not give it a few extra days. Then over the next two weeks the skin starts to strengthen more and more rapidly, then levels off again a month later.
And it's not always guts spilling out that causes problems. A small tear in the deeper layers of the wound where the subcutaneous tissue was previously well approximated (i.e. close together), or strain causing trauma where the sutures are pulling on the opposite sides of the incision, is going to cause some inflammation that might hurt or itch. And the dog has only one instinctive response to that, and that is to lick lick lick lick. If the skin isn't too far separated it could still heal by secondary intention and not fully come apart (dehiscence) but... your going to have to watch to make sure your dog isn't licking it for weeks now, or giving a lot more NSAIDs and antihistamines than you otherwise would.
That being said... brisk walking probably doesn't cause as much an increase in intra-peritoneal pressure or involve as much activation of the obliques as running or jumping. And skin is pretty strong compared to the demands we place on it, 1-2 % of its tensile strength might be all your dog needs to handle a walk (not run!). I carried my 45 pound dog up and down the two flights of stairs for two weeks, but I didn't keep it on a leash in my yard because I figured, if I didn't have a frisbee, she was probably more likely to expend energy going to sniff every blade of grass than running in circle, but that wouldn't risk her wound too much.
posted by midmarch snowman at 5:07 PM on July 17, 2023
Response by poster: These answers have really helped. It's now clear to me that the most important thing is to eliminate stress on the incision - no running, navigating stairs, jumping on/off furniture, or licking - but the restrictions on exercise are really to promote recovery from surgery, regardless of the type of surgery. So we're getting the usual 2+ miles of walking through multiple, shorter, more leisurely walks throughout the day and gradually lengthening the walks as her stamina returns.
posted by DrGail at 7:35 AM on July 18, 2023
posted by DrGail at 7:35 AM on July 18, 2023
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Also - BRAINWORK. Teach her to know objects by name. If you start with spice jars, she can use her nose to know what means "Tarragon" and what means "Cinnamon."
Teach her her body parts - left paw, right paw, chin, top of head. Does she know your names? Can your partner say "Find DrGail" and she will turn to you?
Low physical activity. High mental activity.
Do what you and to build focus and calm with the work. It is very normal for super duper high energy work dogs to be steady as a rock if you give them a task. (Although they may be explosively thrilled every time they learn something new.)
Karen Overall's Dog Relaxation Protocol is just a stay exercise, with some extra hard work built in.
posted by Lesser Shrew at 2:27 PM on July 15, 2023 [10 favorites]