Brought my pup into the SPCA today to get spayed. $40 is better than $90 at my regular vets...however, I had to deal with PITA stickers everywhere plus I had to turn my dog over to a obviously homosexual man. (I don't trust flamers)
I digress...
 Does anyone have any advice on what to do or not to do after she gets home this evening?
I plan on treating her exactly how I'd want to be treated if I had an abdonminal wound but I'm scared I may miss something. I pick her up at three this afternoon. Also, should I be on the look out for weight gain?

I've had both males and females altered.

One thing sticks out in my mind:  The absolute lack of any sign that they'd just had surgery.

Sure, they were groggy at first, buy the male jumped right into my truck bed like he didn't have stitches instead of testicles.

My female took her own stitches out, I went to grab her totake her to the vet to do it, they were gone.

Let her set the pace, discourage high jumping if you can, and let her sleep off the anasthesia, she'll be fine.

Well, you don’t have to worry about a gay man molesting your female dog.
Ask the vet.  He may be gay but he did the procedure and can steer you in the right direction

The flamer was a PITA volunteer, not the vet.
I wouldn't let him cut on my dog regardless of the money saved. I don't hate em', I just don't trust em'.

$40!?!?  Damn thats cheap.  I'm going to have to pay a couple hundred to get it done on my dog in a couple of weeks.  Where are you getting it done?

This pretty much says it all. Don't mess with her. The Vet will give instructions. In about 7 days you can remove stitches. Keep an eye on incision in case it looks like it's getting infected.

[url]http://www.vetclick.com/vetclick_content/pet_info/dogs/spaying_or_neutering.asp[/url]

Virginia beach SPCA.

Folks...

 > One thing sticks out in my mind: The
 > absolute lack of any sign that they'd
 > just had surgery

The dog may well be in pain, but it's "keeping up appearances".  It's a survival mechanism in the wild. It is pretty well-known now that dogs and other animals - esp pack animals -hide outward signs of pain because that'd be revealing a weakness to a prospective aggressor or predator. It's a genetic carryover from their wild days, when dogs showing signs of pain might be shunned from the pack or be another predator's dinner.

So vets need to dispense pain medication to the animal with this behavior in mind.

Cats do the same thing. I've seen female cats right after surgery (after anesthesia wears off, of course) "act normal".  But you notice they rest more and don't play like they used to (until they're healed up).

Spaying is MAJOR surgery and is most definitely nontrivial. Vets do get to be old hands at it because they do so much of it, but it's equivalent in scale & complexity to other abdominal work. Since they do have a lot of practice at it, I think complications/losses are less than for other kinds of complex surgery.  By comparison, think what a hysterectomy for a human involves/costs, then think of whatever you pay for spaying as a bargain. Vets also lose money on it, and just help out due to stopping unwanted litters. Many vets volunteer for low-cost spay/neuter clinics for SPCA, etc.

Buy your vet a beer, and kick the PETA a*shole on the way out the door. I belong to the 'other' PETA: People for the Eating of Tasty Animals ;-)


Bill Wiese
San Mateo, CA

My wife does this stuff for a living and there's not much you need to do besides limit their activity for the first day or two. And PLEASE don't confuse "lettuce eatin', bunny huggin', PETA freaks" with humane society/SPCA workers. Both love animals...PETA freaks just take it to extremes.rocko.

Oh Yeah, watch Animal Planet Monday 10:00PM, Animal Cops to see what I'm proud of.[:D]

Kudos for spaying your pup, it makes for a MUCH healthier animal.

Rocko,
Did your wife ever mention anything about weight gain after spaying? I've heard that dogs have a propensity to gain weight after they are spayed/neutered.

She's gonna kill me for saying this but...think of it like menopause for dogs. After being spayed their hormones and metabolism get knocked out of wack. As long as you don't allow them to over-eat and monitor their diet there should be no problems. We currently share our house with a 140lb Brazillian Mastiff (now 2 1/2 years) who was neutered at 5 months and is considered "lean" by our vet. If she does gain weight NEVER tell her she has a big butt![}:D]rocko.

We spayed our Rottweiler due to diagnosed hip dysplagia, about 9 months ago. After she had recovered, we noticed that she was gaining weight, a lot of weight. In about 6 months she put on over 50#! We took her back to the vet and had bloodwork done to check her thyroid levels and the tests came back with hardly any serum tyroxine showing on the test! We began to give her Thyroxine pills and she is a new dog. In the span of a few weeks, she had increased her energy level and had lost about 10#. The vet said that a significant percentage of female dogs will have this complication and you be on the look out for sudden increased weight gain and apathy in your dog. Good luck.

If you notice some fluid has collected under the skin near the incision, just apply a warm, moist compress occasionally to the area. This will help the fluid to re-absorb within a couple of days. We had to do this for our black lab pup after she was spayed.

coyote3