Pippin is a "cone head"

[Jess and Pippin]

Hi all.  We are 3 days post neutering for Pippin.  Surgery and recovery went really well, and the site is healing perfectly.  Pippin is wearing his cone (not happy about it, but not complaining either).  The problem is he is getting bored!  We've been instructed to keep the cone on 10-14 days and restrict activity to on leash walking for at least a week.  He's having trouble with most toys because of the collar.  Same problem with kongs.  He can manage the bully stick, but we've found that if we let him chew on it in excess (and he'd love to chew on a bully all day if we let him!) he ends up with quite loose stools.  So, 2 questions.  First:  any ideas to help occupy a bored pup?  Second:  how long did you keep the collar on and restrict activity for?  (just so you know, we lasted 8 days for the collar and 10 days activity restriction with Sam  :)

[Nancie & Gracie Doodle]

It is impossible to keep a happy feeling good Doodle down and quiet.  We just kept our Gracie Doodle in the house and with her doggie door where she had access to the outside.  We didn't leave the cone head on after the first day because she just never went near her surgical area.  I had more trouble with her when she had her fox tail removal surgery on her front paw!  So, no cone head and just leash walks.  We did the walks when she didn't see her neighborhood friends because they play daily and she would get too excited.  Good luck!

[Jane Smith]

I had to laugh when I read this.  It reminded me of a t-shirt I saw.  Had a dog wearing a cone on it and under it said "It's all fun and games til someone's wearing a cone."

[Jess and Pippin]

LOL moment!  That is so funny.  My 15 yr old son calls it the "cone of shame"  Pippin has the last laugh though, because he really doesn't care what he runs into with the cone or how hard!  Legs beware

[Jess and Pippin]

Oh, so lucky.  The first thing that Pippin did when he was awake enough after surgery (still at the vet's) was to try to lick at the site and nip out the brand new stitches.  I've had the cone off a couple of times and again, first thing he goes after is the site. 

[Bonnie and Kona]

Sorry. Owen never even glanced at his incision. 

[Bonnie and Kona]

Sorry. Owen never even glanced at his incision. 

[Dori & Rua]

OMD...poor Pippin.  When Rua was spayed in December, we had to keep her activity restriction for 10 days, but we weren't given a cone.  We were told that if she seemed to be excessive licking the incision, to get one from the pet store.  They said a little licking was OK.  So, we just watched her, she was just fine.  The hardest part, of course, was to limit activity.  We carried her up and down the stairs to go outside for potty for 3 days.  The biggest challenge with Rua, aka KangaRua, was trying to keep 4 on the floor.

 

Did they tell you you had to keep the cone on?

 

Pippin adorable as a conehead, btw.

[Jess and Pippin]

HI Dori.  What a beautiful redheaded girl your Rua is!  I laughed when I saw your pool video!  So much like Pippin's first trip to the beach.  He couldn't figure out what the water was and kept swishing his paws through it.  It was so funny to watch!  Pippin was sent home with the cone, and our post op instructions were to keep the cone on for 10-14 days.  We've taken it off a couple of times while we've been home to give him a bit of a break and he is pretty persistent trying to lick.  I'll try again this evening.

[Dori & Rua]

Different dog, 3 plus years ago.  Ceilidh (Kaylee) sprained her back foot, had to have a cone.  It was a week after she got out of her spay cone.  It was laugh out loud watched her walk from room to room.  Good luck with Pippin.

[Bonne Bouche]

BB was neutered 10 days ago! Vet left us without a cone but said to restrict activity for 10-14 days, and not allow him to get at his surgical area. Everyone said neutering would be fine, and that the hardest part would be to keep his activity level down. So I didn't even think to get a cone, and the vet didn't really push it. Every time BB went to inspect it (mostly right after picking him up, we gave a loud sharp "EH EH" and somehow he knew right away that licking was off limits for the time being. I worked from home for the next 4 days and kept an eye on him like a hawk. The vet also suggested not administering any pain meds because "if he could feel pain he'd restrict his activities on his own" or something like that. It sounded logical to me. At about 11pm the first night, I panicked and worried what he'd do while we slept without a cone. We rigged up a temporary "e-collar" from a towel (found a youtube video on it), and I barely slept, waking up every 10 minutes to see if he was OK. He was fine.  We put a "diaper" on him for 2 days (men's sleveless tank) during the day for when I looked away from him for a second or two. But honestly aside from 3-5 corrections a day (reminders) he was fine. On day's 3-5 we moderately restricted his activities, no walks, no fetch, no outside play. He mostly wanted to sleep and relax. We gave him lots of bully stick play. By day 7 his stitches looked healed and we've only barely restricted activity for the last few days (no playing with the neighbor dog -- they play HARD), no running (zoomies don't count, there is no stopping a zoomie), etc. At this point, he's all but 100%.

 

I would like to say, I think our vet did a good job at his stitches, they seemed very clean and well sewn, the incision was only about 2 inches (max), and she used dissolvable stitches (at our request), but said they could take up to 60 days to completely dissolve.

 

thats a lot of info, hope it helps!

[Jess and Pippin]

Thanks Carla.  Pippin responds to EH-EH (we use it often!) and I hadn't thought of giving that a try.  I'll try this evening when he is a bit quieter.  I had thought of a "diaper" as well with an old tshirt but hadn't gotten around to it.  He is sleeping in an ex pen at night in our room, and I definitely will leave the collar on at night.  Our vet does the surgery first thing (9am) and keeps the dogs in the clinic for monitoring until 5 pm.  She wants to see how they wake up and assess if she thinks additional pain meds are needed. (he didn't) The vet techs also let the owners know if the dogs have been after the stitches, and of course Pippin was.   She uses dissolvable stitches, which is great!  We use the term "zoomies" too.  Funny, aren't they??  Thanks for the tips!

[J and Riley (and Luna)]

We didn't use the cone at all, but we got lucky and Luna didn't fuss over her stitches.  We were instructed to come pick up a cone if she started licking.

 

Luna's surgery was in the afternoon so the vet kept her overnight for observation... That was a tough night!

 

"Restricted activity" consisted of some light wrestling (just holding a toy while she chewed and pawed) and short on-leash walks... but of course the 2nd day she was home she got the zoomies and we couldn't catch her to get her to stop.