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Spaying & Neutering

Aftercare

The importance of spaying and neutering pets was instilled in me at an early age. It seems like we were frequently taking in lost, abandoned animals when I was growing up and we always made it a priority to get them spayed or neutered. In the multiple surgeries our pets endured, we never had any issues whatsoever –not one. But when it came time to spay and neuter my two new kittens (Luke and Leia), Luke became my one and ONLY exception.

To start with, Luke has always been curious and fascinated with his genitals. (WAY too much bathing down there in my opinion.) When I noticed a substantial growth spurt in that area, I decided it was probably the right time to get him neutered and I thought I may as well have Leia spayed at the same time. This sounded like a great plan at the time.

Their surgeries went just fine. They came home equipped with E-cones (plastic cones that they wear to keep them from licking their surgery sites). When we got home from the veterinarian’s office, I decided to put Leia’s cone on first while Luke was still sleeping in his carrier. She was surprisingly cooperative while I put it on. But when I let her go, my little ninja acrobat jumped five feet in the air multiple times in hopes that the stupid thing might just fly off! After her initial attempts at getting the cone off, she accepted it and I never had another problem with her. Luke, of course, was a different story.

By the time I was done with Leia, I discovered that Luke was FULLY awake in his carrier FURIOUSLY licking away at his incisions. Great. I quickly got him out of his carrier and put his e-collar on. After much banging and dragging the collar against the doorways, cupboards and walls, he soon looked defeated and succumbed to the pitiful “cone of shame” posture. He was not a happy camper. Two days later, I could tell that things were not going well with Luke. He was being reclusive and lethargic; lying under a chair in the living room. He felt abnormally warm to the touch and his surgery site did not look good. It appeared to be swollen, red and irritated. I called the vet for a follow-up appointment. Long story short (somewhat shorter), Luke ended up going back to the vet twice for infection. He managed to get his e-collar off after his first revisit (which was my fault) and ended up with another infection. After two additional appointments and two antibiotic injections, he is FINALLY healed up and doing well. But even after all of the neutering mayhem, he still seems abnormally obsessed with checking out his “Wee-Wee” J.

All in all, I’m not sure if it was a good idea to have their surgeries done at the same time. After surgery, they’re not supposed to rough house or lick each other’s incisions. That meant that they had to be separated unless I was DIRECTLY supervising them. (I soon learned that direct supervision meant staying within a grabbable distance of both of them any time they were together. I felt like I was monitoring kids on a playground.) I definitely learned the importance of wearing the e-cones. Even though they can be inconvenient and cumbersome, they are critical in protecting the incision sites from a cat’s rough, sandpaper-like tongue. Luke would have recovered much faster if I were more skilled at keeping his collar on.

My experience with the spaying and neutering process is NOT The spaying how it normally goes. Poor and neutering of little Luke abnormally fixates most pets goes very an all kinds of things, including smoothly if you follow certain parts of his anatomy. the instructions from Don’t be afraid to ask questions your veterinarian. about the e-collar and how to secure it correctly. In the end, your pets will be happier and healthier and your role as “kitty playground monitor” will be over.