LGD spay advice

[Mrs.Gray1211]

Good morning y’all!
We have taken our female Great Pyrenees LGD, Frostee, to be spayed this morning. I’m hoping y’all can help with some post-surgical advice. She does live outdoors 24/7 in a fenced paddock with our two lambs. We have set up a separate space for her to recover alone but will still be able to see her sheep and her mate LGD, Ranger.
Is there anything y’all can recommend we do to speed the healing process? I’m worried about her being outdoors, laying in grass/dirt, etc. I was thinking of loosely tying a tshirt around her lower abdomen to protect it from contamination? Is that necessary you think?
How soon do you think I can place her back with her sheep and mate? She and Ranger play pretty rough as you can imagine two young 100+ lb dogs will.
Any advice or “I wish I would have done this with mine…” tips are welcome!
Have a blessed day y’all!

 

[Baymule]

When I had Sheba spayed, I slept on the sofa with her on a short leash. No cone, that really made her miserable. So I gave her several days of my time 24-7 to discourage her licking the incision and for moral support. She felt bad, didn’t understand why and how do you explain that to a dog? The cone frightened her, so I took it off. I took her outside on a leash many times a day and slowly walked around. That seemed to pacify her. It was a few nights of little to no sleep, but worth it to give her the attention she needed and deserved. When she started to lick, I woke up, said no, petted her and told her it was going to be ok.

 

[Mrs.Gray1211]

Thanks Baymule, I'll have to see if I can get her in the house. We made the mistake of never bringing her in when she was a pup so she is very reluctant and anxious when we try to get her in the house. We received poor advice from another rancher who said if we want her to protect her herd we need to leave her outside with them from the first day we got her. I wish we would have done a mixed approach, and let her come in the house for a few hours a day just so we could avoid this situation... but... live and learn.

 

[Baymule]

These dogs are our partners and become members of our family. Yes they have a job to do, but they sure do like a couple hours off now and then. She is outside, working, “being there” for you. She is all in, 100% she would fight to protect you, your animals, your farm. This is going to make her uneasy, probably scared. So this is when you go all in for her and figure out how to best get her through the next few days. I know she is in good hands.

 

[Youngfarmer2019]

Hello, I just wanted to add some advice, if she doesn’t want to go in the house. We recently spayed one of our two Great Pyrenees, we kept her outside, full-time. She had a pallet to lay on that was clean, and we sprayed her wound twice a day with this…

 

[Ridgetop]

We tried to keep our LGDs penned after spaying. The vet advised us to "limit excessive activity"
Yeah right! Both bitches were different ages when they were spayed and were spayed several years apart. Both refused to believe that we could limit their behavior. They each spent 48 hours in a kennel run with a clean piece of carpet on the ground when they came home. For the first 24 hours they were fine. Then the anesthetic wore completely off and they wanted to run se with the flock. We sprayed the wound with antibacterial spray several times a day, gave the pain pills, and antibiotics provided, filled in the escape holes with rocks, and finally bowed to LGD pressure to release them. One did tear a couple stitches, but both healed fine. They were more upset at being confined to a kennel or the house than when allowed to be out with the flock and their LGD partners. They did not play roughly with their LGD partners for a week or so but once healed they were back to normal. Your dog will tell her LGD partner not to play with her by growling at him until she is feeling up to it.

 

[Mrs.Gray1211]

Thank you all so much for your advice! Here is what we did, and it seems to be going fantastic so far (3 days post-surgery).
When we brought her home Friday afternoon, hubby took her partner LGD on a walk while I walked her around the paddock on the leash so she could make sure everything was good in her absence. We tried to bring her inside but she was having none of it, she would not lay down, she was just panting and very unhappy. So we took her to her spot in the paddock that we created for her to heal. We had already put fresh hay on the ground and a pallet bed with towels and a blanket for her to lay on. We are fortunate in that we have a Nest cam in that area so we were able to keep an eye on her throughout the night and she slept about 98% of the night away.
The next morning, I tried to feed her breakfast but she was not interested at all, not even in her morning Milk Bone. Naturally, I started to worry but hubby assured me that she was probably just in pain and that she would eat once the pain pill kicked in. I checked on her several times throughout the day and her mood improved as the day went on. She didn't seem to mind the "cone" which I was so grateful for, I knew she would bother the incision without it. By my afternoon interaction with her, she was eating a little bit of her kibble and her mood had greatly improved. She was back to barking at the hawks and the neighbors in between her day naps. As of this morning (Monday, third day post-op) she is doing fantastic and her wound looks amazing!
@Youngfarmer2019 thank you for the suggestion of Microcyn - we actually have some of that on hand so I will keep an eye and use that if we need it! We also have Blu-Kote which hubby wanted to spray on her "just in case" and I talked him out of it, if I even look at that can my hands turn blue LOL

 

[Baymule]

That’s great! I’m glad she is doing so good. You ask, you get lots of advice and ideas. You filter out to what works best for your dog. Awesome. Glad she is in her happy place.

 

[Mini Horses]

Hope all is going well.

 

[rittert3]

I kept my coonhound in a clean 10x20 pen with a nice doghouse, clean hay and an old horse blanket. She did just fine. Keeping an animal calm after, is always a bit nerve racking.