While I've been known to coo over cute tiny dogs in little sweaters, I don't really believe in dressing animals unless they have very little fur and it's terribly cold.

However, the vet said that Willow was not to scratch at her surgical areas. They gave us an Elizabethan collar so she couldn't bite at things ("I do not like the cone of shame..."), but should she scratch we would have to put a sweater on her.

We don't have one.

We caught her scratching at her right side Tuesday night, and it was very slightly red around two of the sutures. I rummaged in the closet and found an old T-shirt that doesn't fit me anymore. Even in its small condition, it was still too large for her. We secured it around her neck by pulling it up as tightly as we could and then securing it with those rubber bands that come around the Sunday paper, and then pulled up the tail of the shirt and just made a knot in it. The first incarnation was too loose and it came off, so we tried it again. The short sleeves were still too long, so I tied a long ribbon around her, just behind her elbows, to pull them out, and fastened the shirt with a safety pin.

Oh, the woebegone look! You would have thought I put reindeer antlers and a Bozo the Clown nose on her.

By this morning she had gotten it off, and I left it off until I caught her scratching again. This time I tried an even older shirt, a bright orangy-yellow Turtles (remember Turtles, the music store?) and fastened it in the same way. This shirt is so old it was softer and tied better. She's had it on all day, but made the same face.

At one point she was at the screen door when we saw the squirrel trying to get at the suet in the feeder. He gave her a big stare, then vanished down the pole and down the deck support. She gave me this pained look that seemed to say, "Now look what you did. The tree rat was laughing at me!" :-) Really, one could almost hear her protesting "I'm a dog! I don't wear clothes!"

Labels: dogs

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 7:49:00 PM

Comments:

remember Turtles, the music store?

Yes!!!

# posted by  Ivan G Shreve Jr : 10:18:00 AM

 

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