Allison, owned by Sydney
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: Toronto, Canada
Posts: 170
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My vet's usual practice is to have them stay over the night before (so that they are comfortable with the environment by the time of the operation) and the night after (so they can continue to treat with pain meds and monitor a bit longer).
I trust my vet so I went along with their proposed plan. Ultimately, everything was fine, but Sydney ended up being there for three nights because on the day her spay was scheduled, the vet had to do an emergency surgery that took all day, and she got bumped to the next day. When she came home she was very clingy, which I think had everything to do with being away for three nights and very little to do with the actual surgery.
As I said, everything was fine in the end, but if I had it to do over, I definitely would not leave her the night before, and probably didn't need to leave her the night after even.
Anyway, just my two cents on that issue.
I left her cone on because she was quite actively trying to lick her incision, but I also used a baby t-shirt (same idea as the onesie) to cover the incision so she wouldn't catch a stitch when scratching with her back legs.
Quite honestly I found that the biggest challenge was keeping her calm for a week until her stitches were removed - she bounced back remarkably quickly.
It will almost certainly be harder on you than it will be on her, so think big picture and it will be done before you know it!
Allison & Sydney