While I was off dealing with the latest family medical thing last week (it’s a doozy, send mojo), Ginko licked the inside of his right knee raw. It’s a spot near one of the screws from his major knee surgery years ago. There is a big, hard bump. It’s been there ages, but it must have hurt or something for him to create a big, icky sore. So, he is wearing his BiteNot collar until it heals.
Ginko isn’t too happy about it, but it is MUCH better than those plastic Elizabethan-style collars that turn him into a Demolition Derby champion. In fact, I had to laugh when I saw a slogan on the BiteNot site that says, “Trash that cone.”
As you can see, the plastic turtleneck features straps that go around his chest in the armpit area. This essentially prevents him from being able to curve around enough to lick his rear leg.
I put a little circle around the spot where his boo-boo is.
I’m not sure if the angles would prevent a dog from licking front-leg or front-foot injuries, but we’ve had pretty good luck with the BiteNot collar that we bought all these years ago.
The collar part has internal velcro that hooks plastic to plastic, then there is also an elastic strap with velcro that secures the collar closed. Then, you just use the snap buckle and cinch the strap.
We give him a break from the collar, when we’re right there to prevent him from licking, but he has to wear it at night and when we’re gone.
The sore is starting to heal. I’m keeping it clean and using some antibiotic cream.
We had run out of Level 5000, so there’s a chance he was feeling a bit more sore because of that. I got more this weekend, so he should be good to go soon.
You would be surprised at the effectiveness of the Comfy Collar. Our big girl (50 lbs.) couldn’t get to her belly. You notice however, I called her our big girl not our brilliant girl! I imagine it depends on the dog.
Looks like a better product than the collar for the issue you have. But a collar is still probably standard operating procedure for eye or ear issues … where you don’t want your dog rubbing with his paws (or worse, his duclaws).
Because our little one has sores in his front armpits I’m not sure this would work. Does it rub there? We have discovered “Comfy Cone” which is a soft Elizabetan collar that attaches to his collar and then velcros around the neck. Seems more user friendly and certainly is a LOT friendlier to our legs!
It does rub a bit in the armpits. We’re very careful about that. If that’s your ouch-zone, then this probably isn’t a good option. I’ve seen those floppy Elizabethan collars, but I suspect my dogs would figure out how to bend them just so to lick.