I'm going out of town for 4 days and i'm really worried about my cat, Felix. He has been diagnosed with fungal infection in his ear and an abscess on both sides of the face due to his manic scratching. He was asked to wear an e-collar AKA the cone of shame to help his wounds heal. The problem is that he refuses to eat, drink, or use the litter box when his collar is on so I have to remove it from time to time. But while I am on vacation, our househelp will be the only one staying with him. Now I don't want to be rude or offensive in any manner, I am saying this purely out of concern and meant no malice whatsoever, but our househelp is a bit slow when asked to do complex tasks (mostly she just cleans the house) and I don't think I can trust her to look after Felix, sense/understand his body language or meows, and give him his needs to act appropriately while he is wearing his cone of shame. I've decided that during those 4 days, I will have to remove his e-collar/cone. But I don't want him to obsessively scratch his ears while he has the liberty of not having the cone on. Is their any way to stop his obsessive scratching?
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Cone of shame and vacations
- Thread starter fatfelix
- Start Date
Have you tried one of the alternatives to an e-collar? There are inflatable collars or collapsible collars. Since you are trying to keep him from scratching his face they might not work as well for your situation. The other idea would be to trim down the existing collar so it is still blocking him from scratching but allowing him to see his surroundings better. I had a cat who constantly seemed to be needing one and we trimmed it, in very small increments, until we got to a point where it still did what it needed to but he could see better. Most e-collars are made with dogs in mind and are long enough to keep snouts from reaching the body; cats have shorter faces so most don't need all the extra size. Again, given the scratching on face instead of from biting body situation this may not work as well for you.
If you don't think your househelp will properly care for him can you hire a petsitter to specifically come and check on him those days? Then you could leave the collar on and give the petsitter instructions to remove it if needed for him to eat/drink or leave it off if he really isn't eating with it on while you are gone.
If you don't think your househelp will properly care for him can you hire a petsitter to specifically come and check on him those days? Then you could leave the collar on and give the petsitter instructions to remove it if needed for him to eat/drink or leave it off if he really isn't eating with it on while you are gone.
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- #3
I will probably try the inflatable one. Some say that paper plates work well too but it looks a bit constricting. My cat is a bit on the big side so he had to wear the bigger ones to fit her neck, but the cone itself was way too big for my cat's doll face. I'm going to see if I can trim the sides of the cone. Also, would it be okay to make him wear cat shoes instead so his claws won't slash the wound open again?
I would try the shoes for a day while you are there to see how it goes. Some cats might be fine with it but others would freak out.
I wouldn't use the inflatable cone they don't work at all they can reach around them. The comfy cone would work better
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- #6
You're right, my cat freaked out when I put the shoes on him. He absolutely hated it.
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- #7
Thank you! I guess i'm not buying the inflatable one.
