# Post-Spay Photos and Advice



## Tesseract (Feb 3, 2016)

I'm a first time dog owner, so everything that happens is pretty new for me. I did help train my brothers cockapoo about two years ago however when I came to things like her being spayed etc. I was more a casual observer then participant in the process.

So here is some advice/learnings that I have found out from the whole process i'm passing on hopefully that somebody else will not run of the same problems we did:

Advice 1: Shave/Groom your puppy before you get her spayed (or male neutered) as I wasn't able to make it work prior and Pepper ended up with Two hot-spit skin infections on either side of the shaved area (incision was fine). The cut fur had matted into the linger fur and several rainy days and her in a cone just made it a bad situation.

Long matty hair and razor burn don't mix









Advice 2: My vet only does the surgery on Wednesday. But only gave me enough meds to last till Saturday... With everyone close on Sunday and Short hours on Saturday I didn't get additional meds etc until late Monday morning when I took her into the vet for hotspot.

Make sure you request enough pain medication to get you over the weekend in case you need it.

Advice 3: If there is a shot vs. Oral medication, get the shot. Makes your life a lot easier, especially with a Puppy who is not feeling super hungry.

Advice 4: Kirkland (Costco) doggy beds are great for Cockapoos, especially ones with cones on their heads.

Advice 5: even while wearing the cone of puppies can jump about the same height as I could before however coming back down a lot more difficult, although you don't want her jumping up-and-down make sure that if there somewhere she can't jump up that easy for her to get down, for me I built a ramp to the sofa so that she wouldn't jump on it and limited her to the family room (based on house design) so she could jump on beds or go up/down stairs.

I slept on the sofa and placed her doggie bed near by to avoid her being left alone or trying to jump on my taller bed at night if it was in the bedroom. (Yes I did get conned in the face one morning...)

Result: Pepper is recovering and we have a spray for every 12 hours and she is resting. Cone had to stay on for 10 days and now I have a toddler T-Shirt on her for the next little while to avoid any accidental tummy agitation.

Now for some Cute Photos of Pepper in a Cone & (toddler sized) T-Shirt. If you want photos of the infection etc for reference, msg me and I'll send them privately as to not off put people (I took a bunch of photos so I could reference the healing process).


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## fairlie (Sep 7, 2013)

This is all terrific advice. I made the pain killer mistake once with my last dog Max. There is nothing worse than knowing your dog is hurting because you don't have proper meds to cover it. Getting more than you need is a good idea.

Zorbie has hot spots this summer and has been living in a cone. My next pup I intend to get the cone well ahead of the spay and have them adjust to it before they are miserable, sick and groggy. With Rufus we tried to get away with just a onsie but it was not enough.


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## Tesseract (Feb 3, 2016)

Happy to report that Pepper has fully recovered from the ordeal, next step is getting her professionally groomed prior to winter so her coat will grow back in as the weather drops.

Here is a photo of Pepper "sharking" a piece of steak after my brother lost track of which puppy he was trying to treat (I don't feed Pepper scraps at the table, occasionally I'll give her a Tidbit in her food bowl afterwards).

Why, because she is as tall as the table now and smart* enough to know how to get food off a unwatched plate so I'm trying to discourage it. Visiting family sometimes make this hard.

* of the three Cockapoos in the family she is the only one who has figured out how to open the sliding doors, zippers, etc and check all the bowls spread around the house (1 for each dog) prior to eating her own food to see if there is anything of interest left for one of the other dogs...


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## Milliesdad (Apr 24, 2016)

Millie was spayed two weeks ago, she had a check up at 5 days and a final check up at 10 days. 
Everything went well and luckily she never once tried to lick the wound so she didn't need to wear the collar that the Vet supplied, we are both retired so we could keep a close eye on her. 
We did buy a crate for her to sleep in as she is prone to jumping on and off our bed during the night.
Everything is now back to normal with gentle exercise for another week.
The vet gave us enough medication to last fouteen days and that worked wonderfully.


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