Conezilla

So I know I kind of promised a break from coned pets, and chickens, and whatnot, but...

Tristan had his surgery Monday to remove a lump from his knee (that he kept gnawing and licking and would not leave alone!) On Wednesday morning, we found him chewing apart his lovely blue bandage. Gordon whipped him off to the vet, and Tristan came home with a new bandage and the biggest cone they make:



Don't be swayed by that pathetic look; it's all an act. He's actually pretty happy. In fact, the only thing upsetting him is that we won't let him eat his own leg. "Why, Mummy, why can't I gnaw off my own limb?"

So last night we were supposed to take off the bandages, as per the vet's instructions. This I did, managing to cut my hand with scissors in the process. And Tristan immediately began devoting his entire existence to getting at the stitches. As we sat there trying to watch Torchwood on DVD, "Dorkus the Determined Dog" started rubbing his shaved leg raw with the sharpish edge of the plastic cone collar. The leg started to bleed.

So I tied the cone more tightly to his regular (orange) collar, with a lovely purple grosgrain ribbon. That seemed to change the angle of the cone enough that he couldn't get at the wound anymore. Dorkus the Determined Dog finally settled down and went to sleep.

This morning was a different story, a new and exciting story, a story that has given me a throbbing headache. Somewhere between my first cup of tea and my multigrain toast with cashew butter, Tristan managed to contort his body such that he could get his mouth over his stitches, which resulted in a great dripping bloody mess, suitable for inclusion in an issue of Fangoria. (I know about this magazine because one of my classmates back in my design schools days was an avid fan.)

My response was to wrap this bloody mess of a leg with leftover Kotex pads and a tensor bandage. (I had a hysterectomy four years ago... thank God I didn't throw those suckers out, because all we had in the first aid kit was surgical tape and Bandaids! I recently heard on Age of Persuasion that Kotex pads evolved from battlefield wound-dressings.) Here is my bulky, unprofessional wrap job:


Gordon is currently at the vet's with Mr. Obsessive-Compulsive, aka Dorkus the Determined Dog, aka Tristabal Lecter, aka Doofus aka Tristan.

I'm not sure what they'll do with him... manufacture some sort of stapled-together Franken-cone perhaps?

Ssssssssssigh.