comments:
When our guys had FHO surgery the first few days I put the litter onto a big cookie sheet so they didn’t have to lift their legs much. Our vet also loosely (don’t cut off circulation!) taped the base of their tails so when they went and were flopping around it stayed out of their tail hair mostly. I very quickly ended up putting a more shallow box I bought in there because our boys are good boys and really wanted to use the box. I would 200% retire the litter robot for the next week or two. I would 100% get an XL dog crate for the room; I put a blanket over it so it was dark and they spent most of their time in the room, in there because I think it felt safe to be in a cave of sorts when they were first healing. They make ones now that are soft sided and collapse down, but you can also check FBMP. We did NOT confine them to the crate, it was just there so if they felt vulnerable they could lay in it, which they chose to do. I also got a tall baby gate from FBMP so I could keep the door to the small room they were in open, and they could see/hear us better, but stay confined in the room. All of this was for the first 3-4 days; after that you want to encourage movement, especially stairs! Take down anything that’s a high jumping point for now, we laid our cat trees down and I went to IKEA and bought like 5 of these step stools to help them bridge the gap between things like our bed and the couch where they normally would spring up. Give them time without the cone but make sure they use it overnight! You didn’t ask for medical advice but my last piece is: make sure you do your PT, it’s super important for them to maintain full range of motion! It’s a really emotionally exhausting time, but it’s a great surgery in that the vets want them up and moving basically from the jump, so your job is really just trying to titrate them up into normal behavior. You’ve got this!