Any ideas to stop a pup from scratching at her stitches???

    • Gold Top Dog

    Any ideas to stop a pup from scratching at her stitches???

    Ok, so Soda got spayed Tuesday and has been doing really well except for one thing.  She scratches at her stitches all the time!  It's with her back legs (so she stands up and reaches one or her back feet WAY up there and scratches the *** out of herself.  She can't actually get to her stitches, of course, but she's just about got one of her nipples scratched off!  What's crazy is that she really doesn't try licking at them at all, just this scratching nonsense.  It's really frustrating!  Anyone have any ideas of what to do to make her stop???

     So far I have tried...

    -Booties (wrapping her back feet in gauze and then wrapping that with athletic tape.  This worked for a few hours, but she finally chewed them off when we weren't able to keep an eye on her)

    -Benadryl (Vet said that might help...I didn't see any difference at any time after it was given)

    Other things suggested were....

    -Some kind of anti-itch cream.  I'm thinking all that will do is just get her to licking all that off and possibly licking at her stitches too...  : /  And I don't even know that it would work anyway, even if she didn't lick it off.

    -Putting a doggie shirt on her.  This might work, but I think she'd be able to just scratch under the shirt because of where most of them fit and where she is scratching.

    Any better ideas???  This is really driving me crazy!  I can't seem to think of anything that will really work.  She's really getting her little tummy irritated though.  Poor girl...  One nipple is just red as can be and bleeds a little sometimes, and on both sides of her tummy its red and looks so uncomfortable.  :(

     

    • Gold Top Dog

    When Coke scratched his hot spot, I put a sock on his hind foot, then above the hock I wrapped it with vet wrap and a piece of masking tape.  This prevented it from slipping off and kept it pretty tight, so there wasn't a lot of extra sock that would bother him or encourage him to chew the sock.  He is so sensitive and is always worried about being groomed and such, but he never touched the sock.

    sorry it's hard to see b/c the sock was striped (ugly old sock!)