He feels finer than he is letting on.

Note how wreaked his cone is now. I don't know what happened at the vets before and after he got his stiches, but I think he was not happy about it. He's home now, but the cone and the saddness that rides with it came home too.

Daisy wore a cone too often for too long. I hated the cone, not as much as Daisy hated the cone but I had to put it on her and it made me feel like I was hurting her - I wasn't, I know that, but it wasn't a good thing. If I had known it was going to be with us as long as it, I would have done something about it. I promised myself that if I was faced with the cone again that I would do something about it.

Meet "something".  I should have bought one when he was fixed and he could have spent no time in the cone of shame. I was short sighted, I think the lesson is : Dogs are dogs are dogs. They are going to get boo-boos and rashes and sores and they will lick them. Its going to happen, get used to it, be ready. Now, I am ready and we can both look into cone free future. If not a future free of boo-boos, rashes and sores.

He seems a little less sad and now I have a not-cone for the inevitable cone moments that dogs experence through their lives . I might need to use his agility collar with it though, it is tighter and smaller and might be beter than his lage, loose , every day collar. It will probably work better

I just did that and discovered how not really as out-of-it as he appears he really is.  There was a lot of leaping about on his part. I was strongly encouraged to not allow any leaping of any kind for two weeks. We blew it on the fist night home. I think the replacement collar is better because it fits closer and more like the picture on the wrapping.

Now with a better fit  He's tired because me made me chase him around to get it back on.

Yes, the ring is gray. I decided it was a sign and I just grabbed it. I am hopeing that he will be able to start walks agan soon because I know I need them even if he isn't really all that excited about it. I also hope that people don't freak out when they see the ring. I think it is a lot more atractive than the cone and he looks less damaged.

He seems okay with the ring now with me here to keep and eye on it and him. The real test will be tommorrow when I leave him alone and unsupervised with it. He will be pretty medicated until Thursday and hopefully after that he will have gotten used to it. Its going to be a very long two weeks for us both. But mostly for him.