The Elizabethan Collar (ecollar) - Is It Worth The Effort?

The BOYZ have suffered through several post surgery periods during which they needed an ecollar to prevent them from licking sutures. I suspect that most dogs hate them and spend much of their time attempting to remove their ecollars.

What's a dog owner supposed to do under these circumstances? If you give in to their whims, the dog is at big risk for infection. If you leave them on, they may keep themselves amused, but they are NOT comfortable for the dog and tend to mutilate the furniture, moldings, and owner's legs.

A Solution
While assembling an ebook on Simon's luxating patella surgery, the solution to this problem jumped out of a squidoo lens written at the time Simon was recovering.

He had to wear an ecollar - he had 8 easily reachable stitches in his right leg. He had the hard plastic ecollar from the animal hospital.

Researching wholesale pet supplies online results in SOFT ecollars. What a revelation! The dog is more comfortable, the furniture and the owner can't be damaged!

FYI - here's the two comfy ecollars you might consider when your pet has to be restrained from licking stitches (or hot spots for that matter):

Don't Forget The Thermometer!
Almost forgot . . . Post surgery you should take a dog's temp to see if it rises - a possible sign of infection. A rectal thermometer gives the most accurate readings, but requires care - make sure you put vaseline on the tip before you use it. And read the directions - dogs have been injured due to incorrect insertion of a rectal thermometer.

Here where you can buy the one we used for Simon: