Our dog got her tubes tied ten days ago and had to get opened up again yesterday ( false alarm over stitches )so she has not had a walk in all that time and is now climbing the walls with pent up energy . So any advice for keeping a nutty lab Springer x calm for a few days

A lower dose of painkillers than you would want as a human kept all ours calm after surgery. Bit of a tough love situation, but it worked.

However ours have all been Lurchers. A nutty Springer is a different matter.

Ziva had her ‘tubes tied’ then had i think 2 days of solid rest and then assumed she was fine and wanted to go again. The worst thing she kept doing was stretching out her bad legs which also stretched her tummy so i would have to follow her round and pick up her back legs when she tried. After the second day I was walking her the usual ten miles however it was all onlead on pavements so she couldnt run, just walking along puts no pressure on the stitches its when they have the freedom to run that they’ll do the damage. When I took her back to the vets for the initial check I said to them how far can i walk her and they said oh half an hours worth, I then said well normally she gets ten miles and the vet said oh well an hour then… basically they were just guessing! Zivas stitches healed fine first time and also kept her calm and not feeling too pissy about the fact she couldnt stretch her legs.

I asked our vet the same question. .. their advice was to buy a load of duc tape and tape her to the bed (said with a big grin) serious answe was to walk her on the lead for an hour or so a day, but no hooning around off the lead, till her stitches were out. then wait a couple of days for it all to calm down and go back to normal. We were also told no ball games but tuggy games were ok (wasnt too sure about this as lilly goes full throttle at at anything)
Hth

I’ve had two dogs go through the op in the last year, both hyper active. As with the posters above I admit to walking them sooner and further than recommend, but I figured the vet gave ‘safe’ advice that would have some leeway.

I remember another thread on here about keeping a springer occupied without exercise and there was some good advice around trying to tire them mentally. Packing a toy or treat in a card board box, start easy, evolve onto using gaffer tape. Hide treats around the house, teach them ‘hide and seek’. Hide a chew in an old sock… There were others, can’t remember them all and no idea what or when the thread was. Sorry. Training also works, depends how sore she is, heel work in the garden etc

I feed mine on dry food, and when we just had the one I would feed her half her meal in the bowl and scatter the rest in the garden, anything just to occupy their minds for a bit.

Thanks all , she is on half rations to try and limit her energy but i feel cruel doing it . Good thinking with the training , she is not great on the lead as we dont really use it much as the fields are only a 30 sec walk from the house so this could be the perfect time to try and improve that . She is not showing any signs of being sore at all and just keeps looking at me with a whats going on , look at the weather we should be out adventuring look in her eye .