Did they have to wear a cone? My poor (drugged up) Finley has to wear this for 2 weeks! Did you let them not wear it when you could watch them, or did they wear it the whole time? She's so miserable and bumping into everything :(
My dog was neutered at 2 months old via the pound. He did not wear a cone of shame.
Edit: It's more popular for spays needing the cone due to the number of stitches. Most neuters need 2 or 3 stitches, whereas spays are a lot more intensive.
Ours didn't wear them once they stopped trying to chew. although if we left them alone they had it on.
Yep, both of mine wore cones. My girl is older and got the foam soft "cone" that's more like a big circle. When she felt better, she started chewing up the plastic on the foam. 
Then for our male, he got the plastic cone and was miserable but at least it's reusable (and yes, we've had to use it for other issues since then).
You "can" remove the cone if they are miserable BUT you must keep a super close eye on them and keep them from scratching/picking at their stitches. So when we were not busy and just watching TV or whatever, we took the cone off and just kept an eye on the dog.
@lilbluebird: Yeah that's what I'm considering doing. I would watch her like a hawk. I just feel so bad for her!
She did not have to have one, we just had to make sure she didn't lick. I think boys need one and girls dont? if I remember right.
my boy was neutered at 4 months and they gave us a cone which I made him wear for about 6 hours- when I saw that he wasnt trying to bite his stitches, I took it off and monitored him for a few hours. He was totally unaffected, so I took it off and he had no problems.
@alishaloo: Finley's a girl :)
I should also add that she had her back dew claws removed today. Lots of things for her to be curious about.
Yup my little guy got neutered 2 weeks ago. We got him a soft cone and he seemed to be a lot more comfortable with that. He wore it for 5 days.
here he is looking like the saddest puppy in the world.
@Cory_loves_this_girl: interesting - we just had our Alaskan MAlamute ( girl ) done last march and they didn't make her. They said let her rest a day and don't let her get over heated- that was about it. She was alowed to be a crazy and everything.
Neither of my pups (male and female) wore a cone. Thankfully they left the stitches alone long enough to heal.
@alishaloo: Wow! They told us 2 weeks and she can't play :(
None of my animals have ever had a cone after being fixed! hope she feels better soon!!!
@Meowkers: The soft cone seems so much more practical. I wish I had known about those before.
When my boy was neutered they didn't give him a cone or anything but he didn't mess with his stitches. When he had his ACL surgery though, I had to buy him one because he chewed his stitches out three different times. I bought him one of the soft cones and he didn't mind that one as much.
@Cory_loves_this_girl: Our boy should have worn a cone, but he was SO scared of it that he would run around trying to get away from it... so it was doing more harm than good. (He had to wear an XXL because his neck is so thick, so I think the size of it freaked him out... it was literally like a satellite dish)
He did try to lick his stitches all the TIME, so FI and I actually took turns sleeping on the floor with him at night to make sure he didn't chew them. What you do for love, eh? :)
@BP2Be: I think Finley's is that big too. She trips on it when she's trying to walk, which is surprising because she's really tall.
@BP2Be: He looks pitiful!! My parent's dog had surgery and had to wear a cone and he kept trying to back out of it. He walked backward for a week.
@Cory_loves_this_girl: Yes, Percy would drag his on the ground and scare the crap out of himself. That picture represented the entire 2 minutes he had it on. You should be fine taking it off her when you are watching her. Just put it back on at bed time or when you're not around.
When we had our cat neutered they told us we could take it off for him to eat, and if we were watching that he wasn't licking the area. I left it off whenever I was home, poor thing was ashamed and hated it.
@chasesgirl: I know, poor thing... he didn't have enough pain meds in him when we got him home and he cried and yelped for an hour straight. All I could do was hold him and cry my eyes out. Worst night ever!
We bought a soft cone and only used it when we had to leave the house or sleep.
We got our dog spayed when she was 5 months old. (She is a medium sized shepherd/cattle dog mix.) Our vet recommended that she stay calm/not play and wear the cone. She hated the cone, so we took it off! We watched her and she never licked or bit at her stitches. She is a high energy dog, so the "no play" thing didn't go over well either. Two days after her surgery she was out in the yard with us jumping in piles of leaves and racing around like a maniac! I'm not saying that you shouldn't try to follow your vet's instructions, but we didn't and our dog is doing fine.
Both of our dogs have only worn their cones when they were unable to be monitored, which meant anytime we were out and when we were in bed. We did leave it off at night at times, but I never slept well as I work up non stop as I was paranoid they would lick.
We had a cervical collar (BiteNot Collar) for our dog after his hip surgery. We found out he could actually still reach the stitches with it. It works for some dogs but not for others. I've known people to use the Cloud Collar (inflatable) and soft collars, so those are things you could try.
Just keep an eye on the dog and make sure if they are wearing the cone that the overlap is behind their neck, especially if your dog is a chewer. My male lab actually chewed the overlap and removed his neutering stitches just 2-3 days after surgery. We were lucky that he pretty much unlaced them perfectly, so we didn't have to have it stapled, but we are more careful with the cones. Our other lab mix has chewed the overlap as well..
@Cory_loves_this_girl: my little girl didn't have to wear a cone. She had subdermal sutures so maybe that's why. The vet just said to keep her activity down...which was pretty much impossible haha.
My dog was neutered at 10 months, if I remember correctly. He wore a cone almost the whole time because he kept wanting to lick/chew at himself. When he stopped doing that I took off the cone when I was around but it went back on when I had to leave for work. Poor thing was pretty miserable. :(
@Cory_loves_this_girl: Some clinics are strict about this because they have seen what unattended, determined, irritated pets can do after surgmery. If they lick best case scenario they cause some local infection of the skin, worse case scenario (spay) they lick/chew their stitches completely out (there are usually 3 layers from muscle to skin) and their guts spill onto the floor and likely die. YES this is absolute worst case scenario, but hey wouldn't want it to be my pet! And I'm sure if they didnt fully request you to use the cone you would feel incredibly horrified that a simple elizabethan collar could have prevented the whole lot!
My best advice is, just use it when you can't fully monitor her :) otherwise cone it is!
We got my baby neutered this past year, he was 5 at the time. We are currently living in an split house [apartment], with someone who has 2 dogs, which are boys. They were marking EVERYTHING, so we got them all fixed!
He didn't need to wear a cone, and his incision was healed in about 9 days.
@bee1804: That's a good point. They have to cover all their bases.
@Cory_loves_this_girl: We just know how much your babies mean to u :) bcuz we have them too :)
But I do think there's a fine line between ensuring she is comfortable, and safe!
We got Cosmo neutered and got his cherry eye fixed at 5 months he had to undergo 2 surgerys
Before
AFTER
@Cory_loves_this_girl: My baby girl was neutered at 6 months and had to wear a cone for two weeks and we weren't allowed to give her any exercise. She was a wild thing! She bashed the cones on doorways until she disintegrated them and then would lick her stitches. I went through about a cone a day, and about one every two days once we started reinforcing them with duct tape. Now she wears this whenever she has stitches (like right now): http://www.allfourpaws.com/the_comfy_cone.php - which is a lot more comfortable and I feel like less of a monster for leaving her in it. I usually only have it on when she's being left unattended.
My dog was neutered at the shelter before I got him. They think he was about a year old at the time.
Nope. But my poor baby was in so much shock from being at the pound and getting fixed that she barely ate for days and days! Poor thing was already under weight... Thankfully it didn't last too too long and now she's a very healthy weight :)
Our dog needed the cone, even past the two weeks! He was neutered while in his foster home, and even if they took it off for a second he chewed at it. So when we adopted him, we had to keep it on for another week because his incision got very swollen while he was at his foster. I think it really depends on the dog though, because I've seen other dogs who haven't had much interest in chewing or licking.
We got a 6 year old dog back in October and had him neutered a few weeks later. At the vet, they said they really tried to avoid using the cone since dogs hate them. She said if we noticed him picking at his stitches (he had 6 or 7), then we could try buying him one of those inflatable donuts from Petco.
Well, our dog would not stop licking his stitches so we did get him the inflatable donut, which we only kept on him while we were at work. Honestly, I think he could still pick at his stiches with that thing on but I just kept checking his stitches 2x a day to make sure the area wasn't red and infected. Everything turned out okay, but it was still a huge pain.
When my first cat was spayed (I was 6 years old at the time), she had a cone. We took it off so she could eat, however no one was watching her for about a minute and she pulled a suture out and caused some bleeding. No other issues though and the cone went back on.
My boy cat was nuetered at the shelter and all healed up before I adopted him, and I brought my girl cat home the day after her spay and she didn't have a cone and never bothered her incision one bit. I don't think you can tell if your animal will or won't bother it, so it is just safest to wear the cone.
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