Welcome to Vet Village Surgery Patients
Prior to coming in for surgery, make sure you have spoken with our staff to cover any specific questions relating to your pet and their surgery.
How should I prep my pet for surgery?
Animals will need to be fasted prior to having surgery - this means no food after 10:00 pm the night before, and no water the morning of the surgery.
Will pets go home with pain medication after surgery?
Most animals will go home with pain medication after their procedure. There are some pain medications that we administer in the hospital that have a lasting effect, but in approximately 95% of cases, you're going to go home with some sort of pain medication.
Will pets need sedatives after their operation?
Some pets will need sedatives after an operation, and that is just to keep them quiet and calm while they are healing to prevent any problems.
How might pets behave after anesthesia?
After anesthesia, some pets may appear completely normal and may just seem a little bit sleepy. There are some pets that will appear more agitated or anxious overnight. Usually, the results of that are gone by the next morning, so most pets have returned to normal by the morning. But if you feel like your pet is in pain or you're really concerned, please don't hesitate to reach out to us.
What should pet owners do regarding feeding after surgery?
After surgery, most of the time surgeries are done by early afternoon, so we want to wait to offer food or water till the evening.
You can offer your pet small amounts of water when you get home and into the evening, and if they handle that well, great! You can always offer a little bit of food and see how they handle that as well.
There are some surgeries that may have different recommendations for you, but we would go over that in detail when you pick up your pet.
What should pet owners look for when checking their pet's incision?
When you pick up your pet from surgery, you will want to look at that incision to get a really good idea of what it looks like right after surgery. That way, you have a baseline.
Things that we're watching for will be:
- increased redness
- swelling around the incision
- foul odor coming from it
- opening.
Those will be important things to let us know so we can address them quickly.
How can pet owners prevent their pets from interfering with their incision?
Make sure that your pet is wearing either an e-collar (a cone) or a medical pet shirt. This way, your pet cannot get to their incision, and that way, they can't lick it and potentially cause further infection or opening of the wound.
How long should pets rest after surgery?
Generally, for most surgeries, we're going to have them rest for at least 10 to 14 days.
What signs should pet owners watch for after surgery?
The things that we are going to want to watch out for post-surgery are going to be:
- vomiting or diarrhea within 24 hours after surgery
- lethargy 24 hours or more after surgery
- If the incision is gaping or open
- If your pet is just maybe not returning to normal, or not wanting to eat
Call us immediately if you notice any of these things happening to your pet or their incision! We may also ask for a picture of the incision.
If you still have other questions and you'd like to reach out to us, you can call us directly. Review our surgery page as well for more information and the surgeries we offer and common FAQ's below.