brunobaby

When we brought Ashley home from the vet's the other day, they'd put one of those high plastic collars on her that looks like she's wearing a funnel on her head. This is to keep her from reopening the cut on her front paw. She keeps running backward trying to get this thing off her head.

That and the smell of antiseptic is freaking Chico out. His usual method of locomotion is the strut, but since Monday night, he's been slinking away whenever Ashley moves.

Yesterday morning I was in the bathroom when it sounded like a cannonball hit the door. I opened it and Chico raced in and hid behind me like the turkey in the Daffy Duck cartoon: "Hide me! Hide me! Hide me! What a pal what a pal what a pal..." I looked into the living room to see what he was running from, and was just Ashley, who'd awakened and was stretching her funnel head upward.

This morning, Ashley suddenly dashed across the room like a demented jackrabbit, crashing into the furniture because her peripheral vision was impaired by the collar. She ended up behind a file cabinet in the bedroom, making pathetic sounds. I braced myself to see fractured limbs and prepared for another emergency trip. But she was calmly licking her foreleg as if nothing had happened.

"That's odd," I thought. "How can she reach her foreleg? That's what the collar's supposed to prevent." I felt around underneath and sure enough, she'd put her leg through the collar. I worked it back out.

The collar can come off tomorrow night, which is good in some ways. In another way, it's been easier to handle her and give her the squirt of antibiotics she's been prescribed. I've been soaking her foot twice a day and she's been amazingly cooperative. The collar's been like blinders on a horse, and I hope she continues to be tamed after we take it off.