Bringing your pet home after hospitalization – what to expect

If your dog or cat was seriously ill, or underwent a major medical procedure, he may have spent several days in the veterinary hospital or ICU. When you bring him home, you are excited to have your buddy back! There is some adjusting that needs to happen though. Knowing what to expect will let you better ease your pet back into your routine.

Lack of sleep

In a 24/7 hospital, veterinarians and technicians are around all the time. The lights are on, machines are beeping, there is a lot of activity. This makes it impossible to tell if it’s day or night. Pets who are hospitalized for days often have their sleep/wake cycle disrupted for this reason. Sure, sometimes we’ll dim the lights a little at night, or cover the cage door with a towel, but we need to still adequately monitor the patients.

Dogs and cats in ICU type situations rarely get a restful sleep. Circadian rhythms are thrown off, and it’s a strange place with strange smells and strange people. So when they return home, dogs and cats often sleep very well. This can be concerning to an owner, who was very worried about their pet, and wants to see their pet be “normal” again. So let them sleep and catch up – they probably need it.

Eating schedules

Your pet was released from the hospital, but quite likely was not eating on the schedule you do at home. Ask the veterinary team when he was fed – it will all be documented on the hospitalization sheets. Learning the schedule your pet was on will help you accommodate them as they readjust to home life. And many pets who return from the hospital are not 100%. The veterinarian may have sent you home with food your pet was eating there, so make sure you feed that same food. If your pet won’t eat at home (sometimes they make liars out of us vets), contact the clinic and ask what else you can offer. Conversely, some animals go home and chow down, happy to be away from the stressful environment.

Routine

Being hospitalized is stressful, and coming home to routine is soothing. Try to keep as much routine as you can. Don’t wash all their beds before they arrive, or rearrange anything. After having been in an unfamiliar and scary place, familiar surroundings can drastically reduce anxiety and increase calmness – which promotes healing.

dog home from hospital

Pooping

Animals who are hospitalized often are not eating or eliminating on regular schedules. Some cats sleep in the litter box as a way to “hide” and don’t use it. Some dogs don’t like to potty on a leash, or are only taken out 2-3 times a day. And if your pet had a procedure and underwent anesthesia, that can have a constipating effect as well. So if your pet doesn’t poop for a day or two once you get home, it’s probably not a huge deal. (Of course, if the primary problem was constipation, this would not apply!) Animals in vet clinics often don’t eat very well either and, well, you need input to get output! Another potential issue is stool that is a little looser. We’ll often feed hospitalized animals special canned food to get them to eat, and sometimes this food comes out, well, looking the way it went in. It’s good to ask the vet tech releasing your pet what to expect.

Shaved legs

Your pet likely had a leg (or four!) shaved for the IV catheter. When the fur starts to regrow, it can itch. I’ve seen dogs give themselves hot spots from licking obsessively. Sometimes that is more annoying than the disease they were hospitalized for in the first place! If your pet is obsessively licking it, ask your veterinarian or vet tech about having it wrapped for a few days.

Being the new guy

This applies more to cats than dogs. After a cat has been in the hospital (or sometimes just after a routine vet visit), she can come home smelling like the clinic. The other cats may find this disturbing, and pick on her. It might be best to give your cat a room of her own for a day or two when she first gets home. This will keep her from getting picked on, but also gives you a way to monitor eating and litter box habits. Of course, if being in a private room is stressful for the cat, then don’t do it.

These are just the most common “surprises” owners have mentioned over the years. Having a pet that is sick or undergoing a major surgery is stressful enough. We don’t need any surprises we can prevent! Hope this helps both you and your dog or cat readjust to home life.

Posted in General health.

14 Comments

  1. My little guy was recently hospitalized with an IV drip for 5 days. (He has kidney disease and the vet wanted to get his creatinine values down, the regular sub q fluids hadn’t worked). Upon getting him home last night, he hasn’t eaten, has been sleeping a lot, and this morning we found him under the bed. I actually feel like he is mad at me. Every time I try to pet him he moves away or turns his back to me. It’s been heartbreaking to have him out of the house for so long, and even more heartbreaking to see this scared/depressed/anxious version of him. We did visit him daily while in the hospital, but he just seems so different now that he’s home. Am I just over reacting? How long are cats usually wonky after a hospital stay? I’m trying to give him his space, but I’m also scared, because he’s normally such a happy cat. I’m also sad/frustrated because I put him through this and it didn’t bring down his kidney values.

    • He might have been extremely stressed by the stay, and some cats take days to get over it. I’m more concerned that his numbers did not come down – he’s probably feeling pretty crummy, and that very well could be more of what’s going on. Worth a call to your vet (maybe not a visit – poor guy!).

  2. My dog just went through major surgery yesterday, she had her womb removed as she had a life threatening infection called pyometra. She has always been such a happy, excited and involved dog, and she has never been away from me and my family for more than 6 hours, and we had to leave her overnight as they hadn’t managed to operate on her the same day we took her, and the moment that my dad handed over the lead to the vet nurse, she started scraping at the floor, and howling and crying for us, it was truly heart breaking, because she has awful separation anxiety, and since we came to pick her up yesterday afternoon, she honestly hasn’t been the same with me or my dad, it feels like she’s mad at us for leaving her there, she hides from us both, and she has been crying a lot when looking at my dad then turning away, it’s breaking my heart because she isn’t the same anymore, she seems afraid of us, and at the same time she becomes shaky and anxious whenever my dad stands up to go somewhere, it’s gotten to the point where he can’t stand up because she knows he’s leaving the room, and she cries extremely badly, and she never used to be like this. :'( Am I being silly? or could she be feeling very traumatized by this, is she still feeling abandoned by us? :'(

  3. Thanks for this. I am worried sick because my dog won’t eat. He looks vacant sInce coming home. Very upsetting

  4. I really like that you talked about how being hospitalized will be a really stressful ordeal for dogs and that easing them back to their routine will help. If my dog suddenly showed signs of intense pain or discomfort, I’d definitely go and rush him to the nearest animal hospital to stay overnight to be sure. Thanks for a really great article about taking care of your pets after a hospitalization.

  5. I appreciate your advice to ask about eating schedules. I never thought about how their schedule might have changed while they were in the hospital, but I really want to make sure that we take care of our cat during this time. We’ll be sure to follow any instructions that they give us so that we can be sure that our cat will recover well.

  6. Thanks for helping me understand that the house must be the same as the day that they left it so that their anxiety will be reduced after being hospitalized. I will keep this in mind since I have a feeling that my dog will be admitted soon. He just won’t eat that much, and he also has a cyst which I think must be removed with a surgery. This will help him out once he gets back.

  7. Recently my dog hospitalized for salmonella infection he was given antibiotic Pepcid a drug for motion sickness and IV feeding my question is he came home on Monday today is Thursday the side effects of the medications I would like to know how long do they stay with my dog regarding thirst and sleepiness and also I would like to know how many calories are in the IV feeding food he had that for 3 days and when I took them home on Monday he was very sleepy of course and wasn’t interested in eating anything cuz he he was fed Tuesday he wasn’t interested too much and food but the last two DC drink in abundance of water I also gave him probiotic powder and Wednesday he ate a little bit of a Science Diet bland diet dog food just a few bites maybe equal to a teaspoon and a couple of pieces of dry food that was soaked in his water today Thursday he ate again at teaspoon of the Science Diet dog food and one squirt of mother’s milk so I know he’s not getting the full nutrition but is this sufficient for him being that he had a very bad irritated stomach and pancreas

  8. Hi I am glad I came across this article. My baby boy Spice just had a 2 night stay at the vet hospital. He was running a fever and they gave him fluids and antibiotics. His fever came down and was released after it stabilized at a normal temperature. He had i.v. fluids and antibiotics. They ran tests on him but no significant findings. While he was in the hospital they told me that he didn’t eat, which wasn’t that surprising since he is a very emotional and sensitive cat. He has been home for a few hours and I gave him an appetite stimulator but he still hasn’t eaten yet. He seems tired and doesn’t really want me to bother him. He is usually a very affectionate cat. He certainly does not seem like himself. I was hoping he would be happier to be home, but he seems very unsettled. Does this sound unusual?

  9. My cat has been acting weird lately, and she has been refusing to eat. I am thinking about bringing her to an animal hospital so they can help her. When she gets home, I will remember to ask the veterinary team about her eating schedule. It makes sense that they would know what is best for her.

  10. my dog is in the hospital for 3days now when i visited him yesterday he seems ok i think he want to go home. but he doesn’t want to eat.

  11. This is kind of a relief to see(albeit so long after publication!). My eldest cat developed some very frightening symptoms a week ago today and I had to rush her to the emergency vet. She spent a night there while they tried (and failed) to figure out what was wrong and was kept in an oxygen tent between tests because her respiration rate was around 110 (should be 20-30). She then had four days at a nearby specialist while they worked out what was wrong and treated her before she came home a couple of days ago.

    Since then, she hasn’t been the same. She was VERY affectionate and flirtatious with the staff there but now she’s home she doesn’t want any attention, she flinches at every sound and hides a lot of the time. She’s sleeping a lot, which the article mentions is to be expected after so long in ICU (she was there the entire time), so I’m not too worried about that, and she’s still on 3 different types of medication, including antibiotics, and if her large runny poo yesterday is anything to go by, they’re making her feel a bit poorly.

    However, it’s stressing me out no end to see how different she is. Normally she’s my best friend. She follows me everywhere, ‘chats’ to me a lot, she clambers on my shoulders while I wash my hands or face in the bathroom, she climbs up my chest to be picked up…since she’s been home she hasn’t done anything even close to that and I worry that the illness she’s had could have caused irreversible damage somehow because they think she had a seizure from the lack of oxygen. Right now her vitals are all okay and we have a checkup with the specialist in a week so I don’t want to bother them with this just yet but it does concern me.

    Has anyone else had the same experience as this?

  12. My dear bella is still not okay after hospitalization on an emergency animal hospital. i think she was still in shock or what? i don’t know, but after comforting her for few days, she is now okay.

  13. It’s good to know that irregular pooping isn’t necessarily a problem after my cat comes home from the hospital. She was pretty badly injured and needed to get surgery, so she stayed there overnight yesterday. I’ll have to keep an eye on her and make sure things regulate, but I’m glad to know that she’s probably ok.

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