From cone head to airhead

From disgruntled to gruntled: A recap of the last several days in the life of Chino.

At this point, he was too drugged up to care what we were doing. I think that he'd have been bumping into walls even without the cone. Ketamine is some powerful stuff. Poor guy was drooling and crying and just really out of sorts. Because of where his stitches were, he had to have the cone on at all times. We gave him a reprieve when we were watching him. He enjoyed himself thoroughly to the point of an almost-running fit, which about gave me a heart attack.

This is day 4 in the recovery process. At this point, no one in our house has slept all night. Chino can't get comfortable and since he's not comfortable, he wanders around, bumping into things, and all we hear is the scrape of that stupid cone on our furniture. When he gets frustrated, he just sits and crys, which is a heartbreaking, infuriating sound to hear at 4am. I found a potential solution at PetSmart - an inflatable e-collar. Could this be the answer to our prayers and our ticket to a full night's sleep? Chino looked up at me skeptically, as if to say "ok lady, what kind of hairbrained scheme have you gotten me into now?" You can't tell from the picture, but his tail was definitely wagging, as if to say, that he was up for anything so long as he was no longer walking around with a damn cone on his head.

That collar has earned an A for acceptance. I mean, seriously - he's now got a pillow around his neck at all times...what could make this lazy mutt happier? Well, I do know - we could remove the kitchen chairs from the furniture and give him his all access pass back, but that's not happening until he gets the all clear from the Dr. He seems to be enjoying himself, in a constant state of traction. Low and behold - everyone slept over 12 hours on Saturday night, reveling in the freedom that the new collar provides. As an added bonus, he doesn't run away from us when we try to put it on, which is good for the healing of his incision. He'll be back to normal in no time, in fact, yesterday I pronounced him "bright eyed and bushy tailed". He'll be ready for playdates in about two weeks, especially since he's heard that bitches (and you know who you are) dig scars.