How to keep your puppy calm if they won’t stay calm after being spayed:
If your puppy won’t stay calm after her spaying surgery, redirect her energy to treats, toys, and training. You can also put a cone on her head to stop her from licking and biting at her incision. In general, you should limit her movements for as long as your veterinarian recommends.
Many people may not believe that dogs would be in the mood to run and play after surgery. However, the truth is that they often are. This can actually be a problem.
You do not want your dog to be overly active after a surgery. If they are, this could end up compromising their ability to recover from the surgery.
Specifically, puppies have a lot of energy. If your puppy has just been spayed, you want to make sure they are not overly active after the surgery.
Redirect Your Puppy’s Energy After Spaying
Even though your puppy has just been spayed, she will have a lot of energy. This can even be true right after her procedure. If she uses this energy to run and jump around, this could end up damaging her stitches. It could cause an infection as well, which could create unwanted complications.
After your dog has her surgery, your veterinarian is probably going to give you a set of instructions. Following these instructions is going to prevent any unnecessary complications while your dog is supposed to be healing.
To prevent unwanted and unnecessary injuries in your puppy, you should keep her calm while she’s recovering from her surgery. You will do this by redirecting her energy.
Have Your Puppy Lick Something Else
The first thing that you should keep in mind is that your puppy is going to have an urge to lick her wounds, especially if she is particularly energetic. However, if her tongue makes contact with the stitches, it is going to expose her open skin to pathogens, such as bacteria. This can end up delaying the healing process.
What you should do is keep your puppy as calm as possible. Instead of licking the stitches, maybe you can have her lick something else, such as a hollow toy filled with treats.
Frozen peanut butter is a great idea, since it will take longer to lick up all of the peanut butter than it would if the peanut butter was at room temperature. Your puppy will spend a lot of time licking this toy, which will take away from the amount of time she could spend licking herself and ruining her stitches.
Mentally Occupy Your Puppy
If you give your puppy dog puzzles after she has been spayed, this will challenge her mind and distract her from her stitches. Most of these puzzle toys have small treats that are concealed under plastic or wooden panels that slide around.
In order to get to the treats, your puppy has to figure out how to move the panels. You will have to demonstrate how to do this for your puppy at least a couple of times, until she looks like she understands how to do it by herself.
Make sure that you supervise your puppy around any new toy, in order to see that she is not chewing on any potentially dangerous parts of the toy.
Practice Obedience Training
After your puppy has been stayed, it may be a good time for you to practice obedience training with her. Teaching her basic commands will keep her engaged and allow her to focus her energy without injuring herself.
It might be a good idea to keep some treats in your pocket and practice different commands, such as “sit” and “stay,” in increments throughout the day. If your puppy listens to you, make sure to praise her and reward her with a treat.
Restrict Your Puppy’s Activity for 7-10 Days
Many people do not understand just how major of a surgery a spay surgery is. It is actually the equivalent of a hysterectomy in a human woman.
However, even though a woman who has just had a hysterectomy might not be ready to be extremely active right after the operation, many female puppies are. It is up to you to make sure that your spayed puppy does not overexercise and can recuperate safely and healthily.
After you have brought your puppy home from the vet, you need to try to restrict her activity for at least a week to 10 days. Your dog should not be engaging in any real exercise for a minimum of two weeks after the surgery either.
Obviously, you cannot force your dog to be completely immobile. You can take your puppy on short walks to allow her to relieve herself. However, do not let her run around in the yard, possibly rupturing the incision from her surgery.
Additionally, if there is no way that you can stop your dog from licking or biting at her stitches, you might need to make her wear a cone. It is possible that you can make her stop bothering the stitches while you are around her, but you are obviously not going to be watching her all the time, especially if you are sleeping.
Keeping Your Puppy Occupied Is Smart After Any Surgery
Whether you are getting your puppy spayed or having her undergo some other kind of surgery, you should keep in mind that she will probably want to be active after the surgery.
However, the majority of surgeries will require a recovery period. In which you are going to need to limit your dog’s physical activities. This is particularly difficult with puppies, who are generally rambunctious and energetic.
In addition to keeping your puppy occupied, confinement might also be necessary. You might need to keep your puppy in a crate, in an exercise pen, or within confines presented by baby gates to limit the area in which she will be able to run around.
It might be particularly difficult after the first few days. Within the first couple of days after the surgery, your puppy is more likely to be in pain. However, once she starts feeling better, she might start getting anxious and wanting to expend some pent-up energy.
Other than the tips we have already mentioned, there are other things that you can do with your puppy to keep her occupied after her spay surgery.
Play Nose Games
These are games in which you work with the natural sniffing abilities that your dog has. This gives your dog a good mental workout and can lead to many fun games for you and your dog. Dogs and puppies have great noses, but it does take some practice to get them to start using their sense of smell, rather than visual cues.
If you want to start playing nose games with your puppy and training her in this way, there are a few that you can try:
- Which hand? With this game, you would put two closed fists in front of your puppy. One will have a treat inside. If she chooses the right hand, praise her and open up the hand to give her the treat.
- Which cup? You can put a treat under one of two cups and have your puppy sniff out the right cup.
- Find the treats! Here, you can hide treats all over your home and have your puppy stay in one place while you are doing this. At first, make the treats easy to find, but then as your puppy gets used to sniffing them out, put them in more challenging places.
Provide Her with a View
Dogs are not supposed to go outside a lot during recovery periods from surgery, unless they are going to the bathroom. They can get bored if they are forced to stay indoors all day.
What you can do is give your puppy a little bit of visual stimulation by letting her enjoy a nice view. You can allow her to sit in front of the window, look at the sun, or watch whatever scenery is going on outside.
If your veterinarian has approved of this, you can even sit on the porch or deck with your dog and enjoy the fresh air and each other’s company.
Give Her a Massage
If you are adept at massage techniques, particularly doggie massage, a good massage can be very relaxing. Many dogs love them just as much as humans do. They can also be good for minimizing stress, improving circulation, and strengthening the bond you have with your puppy.
Cuddle with Her and Keep Her Calm
Since your puppy is not allowed a lot of strenuous physical activity at this time, you can take advantage of the relaxation time by cuddling with her and getting in some quality time.
Generally, especially if you have a particularly excitable puppy, you will want to keep her as calm as possible. There are many products that can help promote relaxation in these dogs.
Compression coats, pheromone diffusers, aromatherapy, sound devices, and warming dog beds can all be useful; however, keep in mind that none of these products are guaranteed to work with any one dog, as all dogs are different.
Overall, it will be a good idea to spend a lot of quality cuddle time with your dog. You might want to limit any social interactions and visits from other people, so that you avoid overstimulation.
You just want to keep the environment as calm and relaxed as possible while your puppy is recovering from her spay surgery.
Conclusion
As you can see, it is very possible for you to keep your puppy calm after she has been spayed. You just need to minimize stimuli in her surroundings and try to stimulate her mentally, so she is distracted from doing physical activities that could be dangerous for her.
It may baffle you that your puppy is so energetic right after having a major surgery, but the truth is that this is just how many dogs are. It is going to be up to you to limit her activity to keep her safe.
You can rest assured, however, that this is not going to last forever. Once the recovery period is over and your veterinarian clears your puppy for a normal level of physical activity, you will be able to relax a little bit and allow your puppy to start fully being her usual mobile, energetic self again.
