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Help - Max is driving me crazy

Mindysmom

Well-known member
Max was neutered on Friday. All went well with that but I am having a heck of a time keeping him down. He seems to feel no worse for the wear. I KNOW he isn't supposed to be running and jumping but try telling him that!:eek:

He is a pretty high energy pup (he's not quite 6 months old) and the only way I can keep him from running is to crate him. I don't want to do that for a week. I have gates and can lock him in the kitchen which is fairly small but he still runs around like a possessed dog. I took him for a long walk this morning hoping to allow him to burn off some energy while controlling the pace but as soon as we got home and I took off the leash he started zooming around the backyard.

He doesn't like to be crated for long periods when I'm home - and he likes to be with me so it just upsets him to be locked in the kitchen if I'm somewhere else. Our house is a split so if I'm not in the kitchen I'm usually going up and down stairs - and of course he only has one speed for this:bang:

On the upside - his wound looks very good, he doesn't appear to be uncomfortable at all except at night when I put the cone on him. He can't seem to sleep for more than ten minutes at a time on a flat surface so I've been sleeping on the sofa with him and letting him put his head on me. He is still restless but at least he isn't vocal. I know I'll pay for THAT when the cone comes off but it's either that or nobody gets any sleep at all not just him and I!

He is pretty good now about letting me lift him on the sofa if I'm already sitting on it but if he gets there first he doesn't want to wait for me.

How do others keep their pups quiet when they feel fine?

I'm going to phone the vet tomorrow and see if it's okay to leave the cone off at night. I do have to distract him from licking himself occasionally during the day but not too often.
 
An x-pen is ideal, because you can set it up wherever you are. Otherwise I'd put him in the kitchen with baby gates and give him a bully stick to chew on and a kong with a dab of peanut butter in it if you need to do other things. He'll probably calm down and get used to it. He may not be used to being on his own for a little while, but it's something he should learn.
 
Chelsea is a hyper little thing and I had this brilliant idea of getting her spayed the day after Abbey had her sm surgery thinking that Chelsea would give me a little relief and be more relaxed. WRONG. lol. Worst decision I've ever made. Then I had the nightmare of trying to keep her calm in addition to Abbey but Abbey was easy because of the drugs. We have our house set up with 3 pet gates. One by our office--another one by the stairs going upstairs which is our bedroom and another by the spare bedrooms downstairs. During this ordeal of Abbey we've had the 3 other 3 in the office and my vet told me to keep her quiet for 10 days. Yea right. We ended up taking the couch out so at least she didn't have anything to jump up to which was a lifesaver. She still could go out the doggie door but vet said that was ok. According to my vet it was the jumping because of the stitches.

Another thing I did also was to give her rawhide chewies which was an absolute godsend. Helped alot--that along with the couch moved into the garage made it pretty easy.
 
The problem is that if I'm not watching him I feel like he should have his cone on. If he has it on he can't chew on his kong or any of his other toys. He actually id okay with being alone - or with Mindy when I'm not home (I work during the day) but he is used to being with me when I am. He's also fine if he has a kong or something to amuse him.....Hmmmm - he's been pretty good about not bothering his wound - it would probably be okay if I left him with a kong or five for awhile. He wouldn't be licking his privates as long as there was food to be had.

My vet mentioned that I shouldn't let him run (it's really his only speed - I can only limit the space) but not the jumping (he probably didn't realize that he's a jumper). I figured that the jumping would be just as bad for the stitches if not worse. We have several baby gates so I can keep him confined. I suppose zooming around the kitchen is probably not going to do him much harm.
 
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I've had dozens of dogs spayed and neutered. Some are more active, some less. I don't ever restrict them much in the house. In all that time I have only ever had one have problems -- and that was a female who pulled out some stitches when in foster. :eek: I really don't think it matters all that much if he is running around a bit inside -- especially boys have very few to no stitches anyway; girsl are more an issue as they have an adbominal incision. The main concern is not to let him out to run around in long grass or where he can get the would dirty. After a couple of days, the wound will be pretty well closed as well. I never have used cones, ever. If I have a dog that fusses with stitches I buy babygros/onesies from second hand shops the length of the dog and cut a hole for the tail. This is almost always enough to stop them chewing at stitches and keeps the wounds clean. Just unsnap gently and roll up so it is like a t-shirt for walks/toilet breaks. Mine only need to wear this 3-4 days and by then the wound is generally healing well. I'd only use a cone with severe cases.

Ps Usually they should only have very short walks -- a long walk is a much greater risk to irritate and open the incision than running around inside!!! My vets always say NO walks longer than 10 minutes in areas away from long grass, until 10 days AFTER the surgery, when stitches come out. I'd advise doing that.
 
Thanks - I don't feel so bad about him running around the yard. We are restricting our walks to in town on the sidewalks to keep him clean the vet told us that walks were fine just try and limit running. There is no grass yet in our part of the world yet but there is lots of mud. I like the onesie advice - I thought of it on Saturday - actually what I thought of was what is used for females in heat(since I had a lot of non sleep time to consider alternatives on Friday night) but I figured that they wanted the area exposed to air for healing. The onesie would be better for that. I think I'm not going to worry so much about the cone and just keep an eye. If he can actually sleep at night he won't be licking. So far the incision seems to be healing beautifully. He really isn't trying to lick very often - no more than normal. I am definitely calling the vet tomorrow to see if we can toss the cone because I would like to go back to sleeping at night.
 
I know this is kinda old but I thought I'd comment. My vet told me to Feed Teddy lots of fresh turkey. Because of the triptophan to make him tired. It seemed to work well because instead of his 12 hours of sleep a day he slept 19 at times. I was worried and took him back to the vet and he said everything was okay.
 
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