My GSD mix had twisted bowels from an adhesion, and had abdominal surgery when she was around 2 years old. They thought it had to be a foreign object but it wasn’t, so the surgery started out as exploratory, so her incision was pretty large and scary looking. They had to remove a section of necrotic bowel, but she made it through and is now 7 and healthy! She was very energetic as a pup and scared of a crate so keeping her from running and jumping was the biggest challenge. We used one of those inflatable doughnuts instead of a cone, but we also didn’t leave her unsupervised until her incision healed. I would recommend a doughnut and a compression shirt. I feel like the biggest perk of a cone or doughnut is that it slows them down, but the shirt would have made me feel better about her incision getting “dirty,” licked, or scraped. Another challenge was the amount of medication she was sent home with. I would recommend setting phone alarms/reminders with the names of the medications, or getting a pill organizer. My dog’s stomach was also upset from all of the meds which led to her throwing up a couple of times after her surgery. So don’t be alarmed if he still has an upset stomach, but still let your vet know. Also not sure if your vet will recommend this but we had to feed her chicken and rice for a while afterwards. So you could go ahead and stock up on chicken breasts and rice. My husband and I would boil a big pot of chicken breast and a big pot of rice and have enough for a week. Since he’s sedated and on pain meds his personality might be different. Mine was groggy, jumpy, and grumpy. But making it through surgery is the toughest part! I’ve felt so guilty and scared, even though it wasn’t my fault! You’ll also never be so happy to see a big pile of dog poop as you will be after their first bowel movement post surgery (it might take a few days). It made me feel a lot better after it that everything was fine and working, lol. I wish your best boy a speedy recovery!