Max the Dog Broke the 'Cone of Shame'

Because things were apparently too dull around the Picket Fence Post household for Max the dog, he had to go and start biting at his tail area so hard and so often that he cleared off a pink spot, giving himself an angry rash.

I brought him to the vet and, after the vet discovered the root cause of his itching (something that was easily, albeit grossly, remedied), she suggested that I put the “cone of shame” back on him to stop him from hurting himself. We still had the transparent, plastic cone from last year’s chocolate incident (when Max nearly died after he busted into our pantry and ate a whole lot of concentrated cooking chocolate and had to go to the doggy ICU . . . twice).

So I put the cone around his furry little neck on Wednesday as soon as we got home. And damn was he ticked off. The moment he saw the cone, his shoulders literally fell and he started to book out of the room.

Then there were the battles I had with the kiddos who thought it cruel to put that thing around his head.

“But Mom, he won’t bite his tail. I’ll watch him,” The Girl promised yesterday, pleading with me as she was working on her homework. Within minutes, after The Girl got distracted by something else, I heard the sounds of chomping. I poked my head out of my office. “He’s biting his tail!” I shouted. Realizing that being the tail monitor is a terrible job, she promptly put the cone back on him.

Her brothers also had their moments of pleading, followed by the realization that they too didn’t want to spend the rest of the afternoon watching him and preventing him from irritating his tail more than he already had.

This afternoon, Max took matters into his own paws by busting the cone. (I swear his face looked brighter and happier when I discovered that he’d detached the plastic cone from the part that goes around his neck.) So, for now, he’s coneless (see photo above where he's anxiously looking out the front door waiting for the kids to come home from school). Whether I have to run out to the pet store and buy another cone is entirely up to him.