So, Zoë's spay aftermath has been... interesting.
She's done pretty okay, and has left her stitches alone for the most part, but has been weirdly neurotic and started displaying nesting behavior yesterday. Today, I went to check her stitches to make sure they weren't red and swollen, and finding them fine, I made another weird discovery.
She's started lactating.
Not a little, either. She's got noticably swollen teats. So very weird.
The internets haven't turned up much of anything, so right now my best guess is that she might have been in proestrus when they spayed her. Between the resulting hormonal imbalance and her stimulating the general area, she may have caused the lactation hereself.
Anybody raise dogs ever hear of this problem? Karen, our usual top resource, has come up blank.
Ironically, putting a teeshirt on her isn't working, because her legs are so short -- she gets all tangled up and can't walk. Earlier, I put citrus juice on her nipples (staying well away from her surgery line) but that didn't help. I just put a teeshirt on her and kinda tied it up under her tail, which covered all but her hindmost set. We'll see if that works. I know the real answer is a cone collar, but I hate those, and don't really want to use one if I don't have to.
EDITED TO ADD:
Jen found this for me and Paul's call to the Vet cfonfirmed basically the same info: a drop in progesterone triggers an increase in prolactin (give birth == need to lactate), so when they took her uterus out, she must have been in proestrus, which meant a sudden drop in progesterone. Add that to her licking her nethers a lot...and you 've got instant boobies. It's a little unnerving, mostly because she's all shaved. They're all pink and cartoon-uddery.
Also, this is hysterical, pun intended.
Oh noes!
"What's that on the floor?"
Too funny.