E-collar vs. licking stitches newly spayed kitten

I just got home from having my kitten spayed. She's just about exactly 5 months old. It seems that without constant stimulation, she doesn't want to stop licking and nibbling at her stitches. So we put an e-collar on her and NOW without constant stimulation she won't stop wigging the frick out over having the thing on.

Should I leave it on or take it off? How long will it take her to either get used to the collar or learn not to keep bothering her stitches? I am losing my mind here, I only got 2 hours of sleep and I have a ton of work to do and I CAN'T do literally nothing but keep her attention on other things for the next 10 days, 24 hours a day, every day.

What the hell am I supposed to do with her??

Not sure what type of collar you're using, but some kitties seem to prefer a softer collar such as this one: http://trimlineinc.com/. Maybe see if your vet has this type, check Petco or Petsmart, or Google 'soft e-collar for cats' to find one.

HTH a bit,

I got her spayed at the Washington Animal Rescue League. They didn't have ecollars, said I had to go somewhere else to buy one. I went to petco, they only had dog ecollars. I got the smallest size they had. It adjusts to the right size around, my brother trimmed it shorter to be suitable to a kitten instead of an adult animal with a muzzle 5 times as long as hers.

I can't find anywhere online that sells those things that I can afford to have delivered quickly enough for it to make much difference. :\

(What does HTH mean?)

HTH= Hope this helps

Other options: Cut the toes off a tube sock and put it on her. Even though she'll push it down a bit, it should be long enough to prevent her from getting to the stitches.

Or a baby onesie.

After about 3-5 days, it's not as important to keep her away from the stitches. I let my females lick and even nibble at the stitches, I only interfere if they really start biting and tugging. So far I've only had one who managed to pull a stitch, and a tube sock took care of that.

Thank you.

She DID calm down after a couple of hours with the e collar on. It's still not her favourite thing ever and she sometimes flomps over and tries to kick it off after trying to groom herself and not being able to... but she's not doing anything that makes me think she could hurt herself anymore.

Also.... I swear, the basic care articles and printouts you get from the internet and vets should all come with a standard clause involving "By the way, this may be a lot more difficult than it sounds. Here's some basic reasons why. And here's some common ways to deal with those things."

Somehow, I have never seen anything or spoken to anyone that gave that kind of warning. You read and research and post and it sounds like spaying and neutering are just simple, formulaic chores to be handled with these few easy steps. No one ever seems to mention "Oh, and also, your cat may go completely psychotic in reaction to a cone of shame and may require many, many hours of constant hands-on attention in order to determine how to best keep her safe and comfortable and keep her from hurting herself."

I feel like there are going to be people glaring at me all like "Well isn't that common sense??" but... well... no. It's not. Some animals, if they need something done, you just poke them with an injection or knock them out and cut something off or hide pills in their food for a certain amount of time and after that, they're good to go. All the cats we've ever owned had been fixed before we adopted them, and remained in good enough health for the rest of their natural lives that we never had to deal with anything more complicated than routine checkups with them. So... I guess it is a logical progression to figure out that a mammal who has just had a couple of major organs surgically removed is going to be challenging to care for until she heals, but the logical progression still doesn't give you any way to guess HOW challenging.

Hi. I just had my kitten spayed yesterday! She's about 6 months. The vet did give me an e-collar but I took it off as soon as I left the vets place. I think it causes kitty too much stress. I've had cats almost all my life. After the operation, the vet put a sort of plaster to cover the stitches. That helps with the licking but it's not a permanent solution. I use a spray that deters them from licking...think its herbal and it's supposed to help with the healing process. I spray onto my finger and then dab it onto the plaster. When the plaster comes off (looking at the state of the thing i'm giving it a few days before it falls off) i'll just (spray again onto my fingers) dab it around the stitches. You can spray directly onto the stitches but my kitten gets freaked out by the spraying sound.

Hi can someone confirm that using the tube sock is okay to keep the incision site covered? I assume I am reading it right in that the tube sock goes over the torso?