Taking Care of a Dog After Being Spayed. Step-By-Step Instructions

Recently, I took my little pupperchino to the vet to get..."The Surgery". As a dog owner who is basically learning things as I go, I wanted to write out some steps that may help you if you're about to go through with this. My pup is about 8 months, a full-bred golden retriever. From what I understand, the younger the better, but if you are in my position (you got your doggy when they were already 5 months), just make sure you take them in before they are a year old to avoid possible complications.

Cost: I spent about $260 dollars total, including "doggy Percocet" (as I call it), and the cone-of-shame. These are the only 2 things that you will be paying for other than the surgery. For most places, if the dog is over 40 pounds (like mine was), the cost will be a little bit more. Under 40lbs was roughly $200 total.

Time: It takes them a full day to take care of this procedure, and what I did was drop her off at around 9AM, and picked her up at about 5:30PM.

First couple-of-hours: My dog looked like she got hit with a tranquilizer dart, and was visibly out of it. It's important when you pick up your drowsy mutt, to make sure you cup her butt and lift upwards, taking as much pressure off her under-belly. When home, it's best to immediately crate her, and not do what I did...

What'd I do? I immediately felt bad because she wouldn't eat her doggy-meds, presumably because she was still high as shit! So my helicopter-dog-dad-ass decided, "Oh, she just needs some water", and proceeded to bring her aqua-dog to her as she laid on the couch, gulping everything like a frat kid. Fast forward about 20 minutes, mid episode of Narcos- Season 3, and the pup's stomach starts pumping. I looked down just in time for her to projectile vomit green gross-ness. The takeaway? Only give your dog a VERY LITTLE AMOUNT of water within the first 12 hours of her surgery. The main goal is to just crate her, and let her sleep.

*Side note: She puked up a lizard, which I thought was pretty cool. I then started calling her "Wolfy". I'm weird.

First week: Don't let the dog have much exercise, if none at all. This should be a time of relaxing. Take your dog out to the bathroom on a leash. They will shave the underbelly for the surgery, so if your dog is like mine, and has long nails on her back paws, you will need to either...A) Put a shirt over her surgical parts, or...B) Duct tape some socks on her ass (not literally her ass), like I did! This is important to do the first or second day, because a big rash can take place on the stomach, which could possibly become infected.

Second Week (and no more meds): Expect your pup to become more active than she may have been previously. It's mostly because she's able to jump up on things again, and will test that ability at nauseam. Don't be worried if you see scabbing over the stiches, and the wound. It should be a brown color, and flaky. This will go away little by little, and at the end of the 2 weeks, it will still be present. It's just at the last part of healing. I say that cause I was worried that it may have been getting infected.

Cone off! Dog is back to her normal, puppy self! Back to ripping up all your crap and treating strangers as if she doesn't have a loving home.