Tips on stopping her getting at her stitches (spaying)

china

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Hi all, i posted on monday about my JRT being spayed. Well shes back to normal ;-) although currently has diorhea (sp) and vomited on thursday so vet advised to stop the metacam. Iv been given her scrambled egg to try and settle her stomach which is working so far. Vets arnt to concerned as she is fine in herself! Anyhoo! i went to work this afternoon and while mum was cleaning she dissapeared up stairs and pulled a stitch out :-0 She hasnt opened the wound so vets arnt to worried and just said keep an eye out! Well i need some of your fabulous ideas on how to stop her from getting at them again. Iv just tried a baby grow on her and it wasnt long enough! Im at work in the morning for 2 hours and everyone will still be in bed so im worried that she will have another go at them while im not there! I dont have an E-collar because she is such a small dog it drowns her and is off within seconds so is a complete waste of money! any ideas! was thinking something like cutting some tights up and putting that around the bottom half of her body! I might just have to put a dressing on it for the morning while im out but i need something untill she has them out on thursday!
 
Unf I think you are going to have to put some kind of "lampshade" on her, yep she will give you evils and no she won't like it, but it's a lot better than her pulling her stitches out and having to be re-anaesthetised to re-close the wound (obv there's also the risk of infection if she keeps licking away at it!). If the clear-plastic ones do not appeal then there are a lot of alternatives out there now such as the soft canvas ones. If it's simply a matter of keeping the damn thing on there are a surprising variety of different ingenious methods of keeping them on; could fashion a sort of harness out of bandaging material or any random material you have lying about to tie it on or if she already has a proper harness then could tie it to this and if it really does come up huge on her then you could always cut it down a bit to make it smaller (not too much though, otherwise she'll still be able to get her nose around it). As has already been said a small kid's t-shirt might do the trick in the mean time or failing that giving her something to occupy herself with for a few hours (would normally say some rawhide or something to chew on but maybe not if she's still got a bit of a dodgy tummy! Some chicken stuffed in a kong or similar might work though)
 
well the little monkey pulled four of her five stitches out in the night! Im off the pets at home now to get something to stop her licking at it so it doesnt open up! shes a nightmare. They didnt give me a collar in the first place because they are so big and she is so small it just comes off and slips around everywhere! :-/
 
my vets JR was spayed last week and when I went in she was wearing a spaying suit :) apparantly it is for cats but she is so tiny it fits her, its like a small babygrow.. I am amazed that they didn't give you a collar, i have a tiny cat who was spayed on Thursday and she is wearing an E collar. And a friends JR was neutered and he was given one as well so they do make them small enough for JRs also you simply tie it to her collar /harness and she won;t get it off.
 
i went to pets at home and took her with me to try them on, good job i did! I tried the smallest one on which was perfect for her head but didnt fit around her neck! tried the next size up and it went round her neck but doubled over but was absolutley huge! her little head was lost in there! i was more concerned because it was so big she would walk into things and injure herself. She can tare around after the cat sometimes so did want her crashing into the door frames! so back to square one. Im going to work this afternoon and my vet keeps her horse their so will ask her when i see her.
 
How about a sock or a pop sock with the toe cut off?

I used that on one of my cats when her mother helpfully decided to remove her stitches the day after spaying...
 
all i would suggest is a lampshade...!

in fairness i dont think many dogs get sent home with them after spaying because most don't tend to worry at the stitches. Betty was spayed recently and the vet said most don't need the collar, but if i saw her at the stitches she would need to get one.
 
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