Lucy and the Cone of Shame

For the past couple of weeks now our dog Lucy has had an Elizabethan collar on because of insistence on licking and scratching and making the yeast infection she’s fighting worse. I’m afraid to take it off now.

Here’s the thing, our dog is a licker and a scratcher, I’m sure more out of habit than an actual need to lick or scratch. Part of me thinks it is her way of getting attention, but then again, I don’t know what she’s actually thinking or if any thoughts even occur. What I do know is that she will be perfectly fine and will try to get up onto the couch with us when we don’t want her to and we tell her to go lay down on her bed and all of a sudden her ears bother her and she starts to shake her head and scratch her ears and armpits then begins to lick her inner thighs ferociously until we cave in and let her up on the couch. I’ll let you decide.

So with her ears all healed up and her inner thighs and armpits no longer inflamed we had a trial separation of Lucy from The Cone. It only lasted a couple hours. Of course, the boys are here this weekend and I wonder how much them being here influences her sporadic jealous behavior. Okay, so I know how much it does. Still, I’m tired of seeing the cone on her, even if it doesn’t seem to bother her so much. I’m thinking the only way to keep her from acting all crazy is to get her out of the house and walked or taken to the dog park to run around. Basically get her good and tired so she doesn’t have time to think about wanting to lick and scratch. But with this yucky weather and her fear of rain, part of me wonders how well that will work. Ugh.