Eureka: Found Lilly’s Lost Collar

Last summer, Lilly’s entire flat-buckle collar, tags and all, went missing … right off her neck. The dogs wear collars 24/7, so when Lilly came up from the creek bed muddy from nose to armpits with a naked neck, that’s something a girl like me notices.

Because I tend to form emotional attachments to certain things and sew all kinds of meaning to them, I was crushed. I harbored this idea that it would be Lilly’s one and only collar for her entire life. Strange, I know.

I had this other fancy, pink leather collar (and matching leash) that I got for Lilly’s on-camera interview debut (that never saw light of TV tube). So, that’s what she has been wearing ever since … because I just cannot find another collar I really like. It seems I’m pickier about what Lilly wears than what I wear.

I meant the pink collar as a stop-gap measure, but it has kind of grown on me. We even used the matching leash, and I too wore pink when we accepted our Community Engagement Award earlier this year.

THEN, miracle of ALL miracles … A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon her old collar in the middle pasture. While out looking for our baby weasel friend, I found it in the grass on the bank above the creek.

It was still snapped closed.

Take in that news for a second. Plastic, snap-buckle still firmly locked.

That means, Lilly got it caught on something and somehow pulled it off her head without choking herself to DEATH.

Keep in mind, that I cinch the dogs’ collars fairly snug … especially because of Lilly’s powerful freakout-and-flee response.

So, it seems … along with the rattlesnake bites, the accidental poisonings, and Lilly’s many other near misses … that we got lucky again.

When I saw the collar still snapped shut, I held out hope I could wash it, remove the rust so that Lilly could once again wear it. BUT, on closer inspection, the buckle is indeed broken.

So, she continues to wear the pink collar, but I’ll probably clean up and move the ID tag from the old collar to her current one because it has our address on it, along with phone numbers. (The one she wears now only has our home and cell numbers on it.)

Maybe some day, I’ll again find an “every day” dog collar I like. There is a big pet expo coming up in Denver soon. Perhaps I’ll see one there.

If you have suggestions of collar lines that are stylish but still make sense for a couple of rough-and-tumble mountain girls. Do let us know.

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Nominations for this year’s pet blog awards are open through June 29. The four blogs with the MOST nominations in each category become finalists. That means every nomination counts. So, please nominate Champion of My Heart as Best Dog Blog. (Bonus love to those who get family and friends to do the same).