Poor Pearl ...

Hoss is doing so much better with the cone collar. He's learning to navigate around things (like chairs, deck rails, etc ...) without hitting them as much.

I don't know that he's even struggled to get it off. I know he wasn't happy with it the first night and morning, so he probably did when I wasn't around to witness it.

Either way, he's at the point of mostly ignoring it. He eats, he drinks, he rolls around.

Late yesterday morning, our old dog Pearl was out and about. I leave her kennel door open almost all of the time - she's 13 and I prefer knowing that she'll spend her last year or two with almost complete freedom as opposed to being cooped up and ignored.

But being 13, she also tends to lumber instead of walk and laying down is a multi-step process for her. She's not a spring chicken and most of her get up and go has gotten up and left.

I normally don't let Hoss and Pearl loose at the same time, though. He's several years younger and tends to play pretty rough. She's old and has always been so good natured that she won't snap at him when she's had enough. And Hoss, as pushy as he is, responds very well to other dogs who put him in his place. She doesn't have that in her, though, so even though they're kenneled side by side and often lay on the ground with the kennel fence between them, I don't let them loose together.

Until yesterday morning, that is.

Between Hoss's early morning pout with the cone on and my not wanting to try and talk Pearl into getting up and crossing the yard to get into her kennel, I thought .. eh ... he'll ignore her.

I was wrong.

He pretty well beat the snot out of her with his cone. Not aggressively, though. Not at all. He was excited and wanted to sniff every inch of her.

This morning was no better, with my having to chase him off of her 3 or 4 times. He started out by sniffing and then decided that he wanted to climb on her.

She didn't enjoy it a single bit, as evidenced below ...

So yeah ... all those broken hearts over his cone? Forget it. He's more than ok.