[Dailydrool] Interesting (to me) discoveries this week

[Val lbrewerzwick via Dailydrool]

A couple of discoveries which I found interesting.

1. Use of the inflatable donut of shame.  Last week Mariah scratched a nasty hotspot in the flews under her chin (probably courtesy of Ipo's flea adventure with the discovered cat corpse covered in fleas a fortnight ago).   initially I had first the semi-hard cone of shame, and then the inflatable soft donut of shame around Mariah's neck to keep her from scratching the area while it healed, but our vet said "nothing around the neck" (although Mariah was dead set to scratch there with her hind legs.).   So I put a standard dog harness on Mariah, and looped the loops that usually secure the donut of shame to a collar to the last strap on the harness instead (around Mariah's middle).  Now Mariah wore the donut around her middle just behind her rib cage. She looked like a little kid with an inner tube around her middle headed for the swimming pool.  This worked GREAT. Mariah could, eat, drink, run around, take care of all toileting without difficulty (might not work on a boy dog);  basically everything except scratch her neck and fit through the doggie door.   Mariah  is now all healed up, but I have a bandana around her neck, the fabric of which still discourages casual scratching of her flews.  I highly recommend this solution.

2. Excessive barking.  I confess, our pack had gotten quite noisy, protecting our yard from and alerting us to passersby, dogs, cats, motorcycles, children walking to school, trucks, etc.    You get the picture.  Mila always led the charge and was the most vociferous and barked the longest and loudest. She is alpha.  my husband had had it and put anti bark collars on Mila and Mariah. Mariah couldn't wear hers after day 1 because of the hot spot. but Mila wore hers for a week, and totally stopped barking.  Now Mila  is not wearing one, but continues to be quiet, though still running around and doing all the same things and she seems just as happy as before.  And the other two are basically quiet because Mila is!  I was against trying the bark collars, but I have to admit, the results have been almost miraculous.  WHat I found especially interesting was that changing the behavior of the alpha dog also changed the behavior of the rest of the pack.

so things are looking up here.

VAl of Hawaii with Mila (shh), Ipo (whatever happened to my deceased kitty find?)' and Mariah the Maraudah (I look very fashionable in my pink Hawaiian print bandanna)