ASK DR CLAIRE

My dog had surgery to remove one of his testicles. How long does my dog needs to wear his buster collar for?

The buster collar is used after surgery as a way to prevent your pooch licking and biting at their wound. It’s important to ensure there’s no licking and biting at the wound as this can cause trauma and in turn, slow down the healing process, as well as introduce infection.

The skin takes about 10-14 days to be completely healed, but usually it’s pretty good by day 7 provided there is no infection introduced.

Safest bet is to keep the buster collar on for a full 10-14 days until the sutures are removed, however the first 7 days are the most important. You can take it off whilst closely monitoring him but it should always be on when you can’t be monitoring. Having said that, taking it on and off can be more disruptive than simply leaving it on, so depending on his personality it may be just better to leave it on.

Do make sure he can eat and drink easily.

If you’d like to chat in person, you can get a vet on a live video call or start a chat to discuss in more detail now.

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Chat soon,

Dr Claire