Category — Dog Health

I had to laugh when I was instructed by my vet to use an “Elizabethan dog collar” if my dog started scratching his stitches post surgery. I’ve seen Cate Blanchett’s stunning performance in Elizabeth. The term sounded extremely dignified. Here’s what I pictured.

And here’s what an Elizabethan dog collar is.

It’s a plastic cone collar. I guess I get the Elizabethan reference, but it’s hardly as dignified. Although if need be, I was prepared to tell my beloved pet that he would be wearing the attire of Kings and Queens.

Luckily, my pooch left his stitches alone, but I did find a different style Elizabethan online that looked like a better option than the cone. It’s the ProCollar Inflatable. At least with this one the dog’s vision isn’t impaired nor is their ability to eat and drink. To shop for Elizabethan dog collars check out bizrate.com.

After flipping through old photo albums and going through the final year I spent with Stanley II (my Brittany Spaniel before Stanley III), it occurred to me that a post about comfortable bedding for old timer dogs was fitting. The final years are sometimes the most special and emotional with our buddies…I’ll be honest, I shed a few tears amongst my smiles looking through year 16 for Stanley II. Though we never got special bedding for him, I was not surprised to see the variety of options and great coverage in the marketplace.

For the older dogs, it seems to be all about orthopedic bedding. Starting my search at BizRate.com again for orthopedic dog bedding, I was pleased at the variety of merchants, including: Drs. Foster & Smith, PetsMart, PetCo, All Pet Furniture, Orvis, Dog Bed King, Pet Solutions, CritterPetSupplies.com, etc. Prices range from $20 to $200, with the sizes of the bed and the amount of orthopedic material being the main factors in cost.

Of all the sites, I liked drsfostersmith.com the best. Not only was their selection of dog beds nice, but alongside 19 results for my search for “orthopedic dog beds”, they also returned a tab with 17 articles about dog health. The most interesting one to me was an article titled Arthritis Maintenance Care: 7 Steps. The writing discussed topics such as pain relief, proper exercise, proper diet, ideal bedding, and best practices for food and water set ups to minimize problem points. Though each section was commercialized by links to products on the site, it wasn’t pushy at all, but rather fantastic content linked to products that clearly could help the quality of life of a pooch.

Though Stanley II got all of the attention in the world in his closing years, I wish I would have known of some of these smaller tips and specialized bedding to have given him a little bit extra. But then again, he spent quite a bit of his closing year on a king size Sealy Posturepedic (mom and dad’s bed), so life couldn’t have been that ruff. :o)