Sophie is bored and hypo - and so are we. Help !

Hi, as most of you know Sophie was spayed on Monday. Physically, her progress has been typically textbook. Mentally, we are all going nuts, her included. The vet has said other than a walk (on lead) around the (very small) garden she is not to be exercised for ten days. This includes her jumping up or on the furniture. She is even confined to being on lead indoors with one of us attatched as she can't be trusted not to jump on the sofa.

Generally, she is like a wasp on steroids and literally takes everything at 90 miles an hour. I think it is because of this the vet is taking extra precautions as we don't want her to damage her scar or worse still, damage the internal stitches.

We have the usual nylabones, rawhyde bones and kongs but we are struggling to occupy her. The vet has said due to her having a particularly sensitive tummy she must not have bones raw or cooked and also pigs ears hooves etc are alo off the menu.

She is getting so frustrated she is getting quite nippy and we are at a loss as to how to entertain her. We have tried hiding dried food under cups etc for her to find, but all the rest of her toys are tuggy or exercise ones.

The vet prescribed Clomicalm but that only chills her out temporarily.

Any suggestions would be gratefully received. Our sanity is at stake here.

Don't know if this will really help (untested theory ) - but try taking her on car rides everyday, if possible - I'm thinking the mental stimulation of sitting in a seat and looking at everything may entertain her and give her an outlet - ??

I can't really suggest anything that you already haven't tried! Just one of those things you have to sit out, and it gets worse before it gets better, sorry for that. I no the frustration well but its not long XX

Play hide and seek with treats we do that with Billy it's really good for the mind, practice tricks with treats

Hopefully that will help

Thanks for the advice. The car is not an option though it would be lovely. She travels in a crate in the car and gets very hypo but if she was a bit calmer in the car that would have been a really good idea.

We have been doing basic 'slow' training indoors with her this evening, getting her to improve her 'leave'. Also Bob has been hiding treats under cups which has kept her occupied. After a good tea and a good ahem toilet she is now a lot calmer, chomping on her rawhyde bone.

Hopefully, she will settle tonight. She sleeps in a crate in our room, but we have got a spare one in the lounge she can settle in as we have to make sure she doesn't worry at her stitches.

Keep the ideas coming though, we are willing to try anything. Will do the hide and seek thing tomorrow and let you know how we get on ><

I do a sit stay while I hide the treats. Gets their mind going. Then I let them search for them. Once I release though it is an all out sprint. I don't think there is a humanly possible way to keep them completely calm though. All you can do is your best. I am going through the same things. Today brought the pup to the office with me so Monte would sleep. Who knows though. He is pretty bummed to get left behind. Think I'll try the drive later as well.

i dont know if this will be of help but on amazon they do dog games like this

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nina-Ottosson-Dog-Brick-Activity/dp/B001KZ4WJE/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1327091104&sr=8-10

i know they are quiet pricey and they are loads of variations if you search different ones.(they also have them on ebay, and pets at home do there version) i can recommend them. river slept for 3 hours after have a go one one. basically you hide there treats and they have to work out where they are. its great mental tool for them, especially at the moment im poorly so cant quite manage all the exercise River is used to.

Awww times a healer hope things get better for you all

Good Luck , it's our turn next week

Oh Gawd. All was going so well. One of Sophie's stitches came away this morning. Her wound was nice and clean and knitted well together.

Until now.

She has a 'line' of blood along the wound. We have phoned the emergency vet and she advised us to tease the wound and see if it is likely to come apart. Thankfully, this didn't happen but we are aware we have taken a few steps back.

We emailed pictures of her wound to the vet and she was happy that it will settle down but we are still on red alert.

No idea what caused this. She has just had a mild tranquiliser and hopefully that coupled with some chicken and rice she will settle and allow herself to heal overnight.

Will keep you posted. ><

Hope everything turns out okay. We had a hard time with Suki as well. Can't add any more ideas that weren't already mentioned.

we had this with lemmy. he wa suposed to be short toilet trip only walks for the first few days then lead only walks after that for 10 days. he is bored silly. the first day was ok cos theyre still tired but the 2nd and 3rd days were manic. took him for a nice slow walk round the block so he still thought he was out even though it was only 5 minutes. would that not be possible.