Jetty is our 12th cat but, I have to admit, she’s one of the few whose spay surgery was done after adoption. Most of our cats have come to us “pre-spayed” by their shelter; our late Coco was an exception since our neighbors found her at our local post office. We pre-adopted/fostered Lucky before his neuter but, as a male, is surgery seemed far simpler than the spay surgery that Jetty had last month.
So I’d read up on all the post-spay protocol before taking Jetty in for her surgery at our local vet’s office. Jetty is a very active kitten–more than any other of our cats, past or present–and she likes nothing better than to run and jump and climb. We knew it would be a challenge to keep her quiet for 10 days.
Picking up her food at bedtime and her water by 6am, we had Jetty out of the house by 7:30 for her surgery, then we busied ourselves by preparing the house for her return. We have a large pop-up dog kennel that we had used when we evacuated from Hurricane Harvey with Lucky and Inca:
The kennel is large enough for a small litterbox, food, and water bowls, and a bed. We got the kennel out of storage and prepared for Jetty’s return home that day at 4pm.
I set up the kennel in our living room so that I could sleep on the couch beside her and keep an eye on her throughout the night. The dogs stayed in the bedroom with John; they love Jetty but they also love cat food (which we usually keep at counter height) so we wanted to keep everyone separated that first night.
As soon as we picked her up about 4pm, we got Jetty settled in the kennel. Wearing a soft cone (which I like SO much better than the rigid cones), Jetty maneuvered the kennel without any problems. Because she was wearing a soft cone, I was able to flip it back over her shoulders for meals, making it much easier for her to eat.
Jetty came home with three days of pain medication which kept her comfortable that first night. On days two and three, I’m sure she was uncomfortable but she was already getting active once again, and the pain meds helped make her sleepy and less restless in the kennel.
By day four, Jetty was definitely getting tired–very tired–of the kennel. The vet’s office had recommended a small bathroom as an option; we don’t have a guest bath and we felt the temptation of jumping up on the sink, toilet, and window sill of our bathroom would just be a problem.
I moved Jetty up to my office to her favorite window perch behind my computer; I have an entire wall of shipping tables for our store against that wall so she couldn’t immediately jump down. When she left the window perch, I immediately picked her up and placed her on the floor, staying beside her so she wouldn’t be tempted to jump back up into the window.
Every day, she was able to spend a few hours in the office window but much of the time was spent in the kennel in the living room. Lucky was the perfect companion during her recuperation, leaning against the side of her kennel all night long every night.
Just as we’d done during our hotel evacuation, we used Cats Incredible litter in Jetty’s litterbox. Even though I slept right beside the kennel and litterbox every night for 10 nights, I never smelled a whiff of ammonia thanks to Cats Incredible’s ability to prevent ammonia from forming in the box–not to mask it with perfumes.
It’s great knowing that every bag of cat litter helps homeless pets and helps family pets be spayed or neutered. All of the net profits from cat and dog products sold by Herrick’s family-owned and -operated Lucy Pet Products goes to The Lucy Pet Foundation which has been so busy helping to fly pets made homeless by Hurricane Harvey–like our Jetty was–to safety.
We give Cats Incredible a big paws up for helping to keep our home odor-free and for providing a great litter for our cats.
For More Information:
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Lucy Pet Products is a CatTipper sponsor. As always, we only share products that we use with our own pets; all statements and opinions are entirely our own.
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