Safe post-surgical exercise?

jisincla

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Cricket the survivor kitten got neutered this morning. I brought him home with the following instructions from the clinic:

Keep him warm and dry.

Don't let him lick his incision.

Don't let him run, jump, climb, or roughhouse.

So we got home and I put him in a guinea pig cage (about 4 feet long by 2 feet wide), with a litter box on one end, food and water bowls on the other end, and a nice soft kitty bed in the middle, with his plush snuggle toy to keep him warm on the bed.

He was really agitated at first, which I figured was probably because he was frantically hungry. I fed him (small amount, another small amount later on, not too much food all at once). He gobbled it up and licked the bowl clean. I hoped he would settle down for a nice quiet nap. Instead he proceeded to lick his incision, leap into his water bowl and get himself wet, run, jump, and climb all around the cage, and roughhouse with his snuggle toy and his bed, both of which became airborne at times.

I took him out of the cage, put a harness and leash on him to contain his zooming, and tried to encourage him to sit calmly and get petted instead of wrestling with his cage furnishings. He tried to jump off the edge of my bed (numerous times), he jumped on my face (two or three times), he tackled and bit my hands (more times than I can count), he ran around and around and around in circles, and he managed to get the harness partway off.

I took off the harness and put him back in the cage. The cat bed and toy began flying again.

Clearly this kitten has too much energy to have his activity restricted. What are some activities that energy could be channeled into, that would be safe for him to do right after surgery?
 

sharky

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I cant recommend any activity but I can suggest a call to the vet or er vet and explain ... he may need a sedative or he may be okayed back to kittenhood
 

strange_wings

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If it was just a normal neutering you really don't have to do anything. I've never been sent home with any neutering after care directions other than "keep an eye on the incision" which sort of goes without saying.
 

stephanietx

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Did they keep him overnight or was it a one-day thing? Did they send him home with a cone?
 
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jisincla

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It was a one-day thing at a low-cost spay and neuter clinic: I dropped him off first thing this morning, and picked him up this afternoon. Due to his history (which includes a hospitalization with 30 blood sugar), I asked them to operate on him early in the day, so he could go home early, and have a shorter fast. The nice lady who checked him in said she would ask the surgeon to put him first on the schedule. She called me shortly after noon to tell me he was out of surgery and everything had gone fine. I brought him home around 4 p.m.

They didn't send him home with a cone, just told me to keep an eye on him and if he licked his incision, I would have to buy a cone. Where would I get a cone that would fit on a 3-pound kitten, and *stay* on such a determined and acrobatic contortionist?!

How common is it for a cat to be manic this soon after surgery? I'm used to bringing home drowsy animals that mostly snooze through the rest of the day. This little guy--3 pounds, remember--attacked my 90-pound foster dog when I took him out a few minutes ago.
 

sharky

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the young ones usually are back to them selves within hours
 

taryn

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My vet acknowledged it is impossible to keep a kitten from being a kitten so just let them do what they do. They won't do anything that hurts, they know their limits and if they do do something that makes them hurt they'll only do it once.

Older animals take longer to 'heal'. Nuts took it a lot more slow than Attitude post-neuter. Attitude was bouncing off the walls the second I her home from the vet after her spay but Nuts was more subdued and seemed sore. Of course Attitude was also on pain meds for 3 days and Nuts wasn't.

Let him be a kitten just keep an eye on the incision and if there are stitches(and there usually aren't) just keep an eye on them.

Like I said my vet said that while you should try to keep them quiet you can't force them to.

By the way, one of my outside cats had a spay/abort(as an adult, as part of TNR) and she was climbing trees and climbing to the roof of our house the next day. She was also the only one we were told to release the second she got home. Keep in mind she was not on pain killers. She recovered just fine. You can't keep some cats down.

Taryn
 

catsallaround

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Never had a male come with stiches...so I am guessing thats more a preventive thing? But in all the cats I had done I never tried to stop them unless they were still doped up then they were caged till they were more alert. And Id use reg clay litter if I had been using a scoop.

Tom is the big day for my kittens dropping them all off for s/n ing.
 
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