Cone Saga Part II

We left him alone for two hours with the cone on. When I returned, I found it odd that he was still sitting on the same spot, and odder still that he did not greet me at the door. Today I was to discover a new form of resistance: the hunger strike.

I went back out to do some errands. An hour later, he had not moved, nor had he decided to step into the backyard. Most alarming, he had not had a drop to drink. I made him go into the yard, and gave him some water out of my cupped hand, but I could not make him go near his water bucket. Contact between the cone and the water bucket seemed to freak him out. Same thing with his food bowl. In desperation, I made him sit in the backyard, hoping that a passing squirrel might make him forget this sorry episode. An hour later, I went out to look for him and couldn't find him. I eventually saw him, hiding under some bushes. It was then that I couldn't take it anymore and took off the cone.

The first thing he did after that was lick his sutures, so I put his plastic muzzle on. He persisted, rubbing them with the plastic. Even though I had been told was time to let them air out, I ended up bandaging his paw to avoid further irritation. This went on for the better part of the evening, with me taking off the muzzle every once in a while so he could eat or drink (think of the schnauzer beard!), and him going for his new obsession as soon as he could take off the bandage.

We didn't sleep very well that night, and I vowed to replace the cone the next morning. The prospect didn't look good, so imagining there would have been others in my situation, I checked some sites on the internet and sent for a "no-cone collar" sold by Disabled Pets. However, I still had to find a way to keep him away from his paw for the days it would take the package to arrive. I also needed to be prepared for the possibility that the new collar might not work.

On the second day, I donned gloves and a long-sleeved hoodie to be able to hold him down, putting my full body weight to work while Sarah, having figured out the right diameter, snapped it together. We suceeded on the second try. We left him alone for the better part of the morning, with the same results: total depression. No drinking or eating. In fact, he did not move from his bed. By late afternoon I was worried once more. This time, he would not even drink or eat out of my hand. So took off the cone once more. He ran to his water bucket, and could have drunk a gallon had I not stopped him periodically.

The rest of the day passed in a similar fashion, but instead of a bandage, I decided to place a thick old sock over the paw to give his sutures more of a chance to breathe. This was helpful as he did not lick them directly, and I was able to leave him without a muzzle. The sock generated a lot of sympathy during our afternoon walk near the house! The hardest part of the day was near his bed time, when his nightly chew-myself-to-sleep ritual was replaced by the new lick-myself-to-sleep obsession. So I gave him a new nylabone (ignored), stuffed toys (ignored), a bully stick (ignored), and a bone (success!) until he fell asleep at his summer solstice time of 9:00 PM.