[pstinard]

Also, Bella had to have an Elizabethan collar to keep her from licking and biting her stitches until they were removed at two weeks post surgery. You can see in the photo that we used an inflatable collar, and that was MUCH easier for her to handle than the hard plastic cone, which she absolutely hated. We had trouble getting her to eat for the first few days. We ended up making home-made fat-free low sodium chicken broth by boiling a chicken in water with no added salt, chilling it, and removing the fat, and she loved that. She drank that for the first week instead of water, and we also soaked her dry kibble in it to soften it and make it more appetizing. I think she lost her appetite due to the pain meds we were giving her (Metacam liquid in a syringe that we squirted into her mouth each morning.)