Originally Posted by
CritterMom
Hey, old timer!
Well, I'm not a rehabber but I am another TSB old timer. Doing a spay on an animal before the uterus becomes a pus filled mess - and they can - is ALWAYS going to be a better thing. If your vet thinks this is going to go south, doing it before then is a no brainer.
What I would look for in a vet is one that has a lot of small animal experience - someone who has spayed a bunch of rats would be great, and someone who has a lot of experience with anesthesia and who has someone other than the vet who is monitoring the anesthesia constantly. That is ALWAYS the thing that frightens me the most about surgery on these guys. If there was a way that it was 100% safe I would have absolutely neutered both of my boy squirrels - not for behavioral issues, but because it totally eliminates cancers in areas that they tend to want to form.
Also, you are a squirrel veteran so you KNOW how fussy they are about things they think shouldn't be there - like scabs on your hands that they MUST remove for you...and stitches. Collaring a squirrel is almost impossible - their little bullet heads are about the same circumference as their necks so unless it is tight enough to strangle them they can slip it right off. Ask your vet to do these three things: 1- Do internal sutures so there are no exposed stitches to see and mangle; 2- Apply blobs of either nail polish or fast drying glue to a bunch of places in her fur that are nowhere near the incision. It will give her something to mess with and try to get out of her fur that are not going to hurt her and will occupy her so she leaves the incision alone; and 3- In the same vein, cut a couple narrow strips of vet wrap and wrap it around her wrists in little bracelets so she can mess around with those. These three things should be done right after the surgery when she is recovering from the anesthesia, so she wakes up with them there. You will still need to watch her like a hawk but if she has something really obvious to fiddle with and try to get off of her she may not even notice her incision.