The cone of shame

[Julianne65]

Hello all. Our little darling has got herself into a fight and has a wound on her back leg. Trip to the vet yesterday who gave her antibiotics, pain relief and the dreaded cone of shame. She’s also not allowed out for a few days. She was good last night and kept it on but this afternoon she’d had enough and managed to wrench it off and won’t keep it on. She’s worked out how to manoeuvre it off (it’s one of those softer ones).

We’ve ordered another one which will arrive tomorrow (it’s softer and looks more comfy) but in the meantime, does anyone have any ideas to stop her from licking the wound?

We’re watching her and distracting her so far but we can’t do that at night. We have to clean the wound twice a day too with Hibiscruff and it is looking a lot better already but don’t want to undo all the good work.

The vet checked her and she’s not got a temp, she’s fine in herself, eating well, jumping up and down things and generally being her usual self. Thank you.

I found this better tolerated than the cone of shame. Although she lost the ability to go upstairs on it. (Apparently!)

I never bothered. It’ll heal up she’s on antibiotics.

I got a long sleeved baby tee shirt 3 to 6 months from a charity shop fitted well and did the trick.Front paws through the sleeves then over the head covered part of his body

I have just shrunk a perfectly good cashmere jumper- it is now cat sized if that would be helpful

I put a wee baby tee shirt on mine if I need to. I feel so bad about making them wear a cone of shame, lol.Glad she’s on the mend.

get a surgical cat vest from the vets, it’ll only be about £20 and so much easier and comfortable.

Your cat is adorable 🥰

She couldn’t look anymore pissed off if she tried 😍

Look at her face!

You want @Esgaroth, who had a similar problem with her cat. It’s documented on the Excellent Cats Hallowe’en thread.

Oh she’s adorable. She should always wear this! We’ve ordered one similar but it has planets on it. She will look so fancy!

Thank you everyone. We managed to put the original one on while we went out and she kept it on. We’ve taken it off her while we’re with her so she has a rest.

As Empress says, we had an absolute nightmare with our cat and a leg wound he was desperate to lick. I tried all kinds and he ended up wearing some kind of cone or another for over a month, had an infection, had stitches, bandages.. I thought it would never heal. And it started off very small and minor.

I would advise you to go in the opposite direction to what PPs say. Suits and soft cones are good probably for body wounds. But it is very tricky to protect a leg wound - though we had a front leg wound rather than a back leg - and the soft comfy options are completely inadequate ime.

I would get a hard classic cone that attaches to a normal collar. Make sure the collar is tight enough that she can't wriggle out of it. She will not enjoy life with the cone on but trust me it's better short term misery than being wishy washy with it and her licking the wound - even just a few licks can fuck everything up.

Also consider wrapping self adhesive bandages round the leg if you think she is likely to bash it with the cone, which is what our cat did. With non stick gauze underneath if the wound is bleeding or weeping at all.

😂

DDog was unable to move when we tried to get her used to a harness for the car. She would stand there, motionless, when we put it on. Occasionally lifting a paw, then putting it down again in the same spot. Moving at all, let alone normally, was apparently impossible.

She is even more of a drama queen than DD, which is saying a lot 😂

And we tried jumpers and t-shirts and when you need them to be long sleeved they are just useless. A cat as you know is able to draw its legs right up. They will get their legs out of long sleeves very easily.

I did use a pair of baby tights (newborn size) to give my cat cone breaks. I cut a hole in the bum panel and wrapped the empty tights leg round and tied it through the hole. He could get his legs out of this with enough effort but it was good for supervised breaks and prevented quick crafty licks. They can be very quick!

Oh dear 🤣

This is what finally worked for us: massive hard cone (biggest size available for cats) plus bandage. He hated it but it worked.

Believe me when I say we messed around with a lot of less extreme options trying to be kind to the cat. I wish I hadn't!

Shame it's a leg wound otherwise I'd use the suits, we used one on my ragdoll after her spay, as I couldn't bring myself to make her wear those nasty plastic cones

She has a "walking jacket" to go out in the garden in (like a harness but a little jacket that goes to mid back) so I threaded this through the openings of the suit and put it over the top so there was no way of removing the suit. It had doughnuts on 😂

If you can sew, could you sew an "arm" onto the suit that could hang down over the leg in question with a little velcro at the bottom to secure in place, like a cuff? However this will only work if the wound is OK to be covered

Our Miriel had her eye out due to cancer. The cone lasted as long as it took to leave the surgery and get to the car park. She absolutely refused to have one and never interfered with the wound.



@MadKittenWoman that's exactly what I've done with all cones. They are far more at risk of causing themselves harm with it on, than off. My late girl who lost her eye also never touched it. And after an initial clean of her face, after her recent surgery. Penelope left her eye alone.

We had a sort of cushion thing that wrapped round Ddog's neck. Softer and less humiliating than the cone. Well, he seemed less embarrassed!

Thanks everyone! The new soft cone we ordered didn't fit her. Her original cone is staying on now so that's good.

A warning re the suits is that they are expensive and not all cats will tolerate them. Our kitten promptly collapsed to the floor when we put it on and was still as a statue for a minute or so. Next moment, she started violently throwing herself around the room, against walls, etc to the point where I thought she might really hurt herself so had to remove it. She managed to catch a claw in it and tear it so it couldn’t be returned - waste of £21!