My Name is Jake..and I pick my scabs

This is Jake. Jake is a 2 year old Pit Bull/Boxer/whateverelse his mother slept with mix.

Jake is a compulsive scab picker.

Jake doesnt know the meaning of the word STOP!

Jake now has a cone to deal with.

A few weeks ago we noticed whenever he would scratch his ear he would start to whimper. So I called him over and took a look. He was getting bald patches and oozing wounds on his ear.

So we took him in, got it cleaned out and a cone. We put Salve on it every morning and every night. His ear looked like it had finally cleared up. So we took the cone off. The next morning it was oozing again, and he had blood on his toenails. So I washed and salved his ear and put the cone of humiliation back on. Day in and day out he waddled morosely with that cone. I could tell that his ear was itching so badly, but he could do nothing about it....but he tried! I would hear "thwump, thwump, thwump" of his back nails against the plastic cone. His thwumping would get more and more frantic, but I refused to take off that cone.

So Jake, in his infinite wisdom, decided to get that cone off come hell or highwater. He would walk too close to the walls, or deliberately hit his cone on the way out the door. By the end of day 2 the cone lay with 2 giant cracks in it. Now most people would throw it away and start over with a new cone. Good think I am a redneck. Nothing a little duct tape wouldnt fix!! Fast forward to day 7. The entire cone was covered in tape. THE ENTIRE CONE. I kid you not. Multiple fractures and splits, cracks and crevices. This dog DELIBERATELY tried to get out of his cone. But I stood my ground, adding more tape as every new fissure appeared.

The other morning I let him outside to do his business and when he came back in, there was no cone around his head. Somehow he had gotten out of it while he was out in the backyard. I think his little basset hound friend next door was a conspirator in this. I found the cone near the fence of Toby's house, while Toby was out in the yard near the fence, where he waits for Jake to come out and play. A coincidence?? Perhaps. All I know is that even duct tape couldnt fix the cone after he was done with it.

Oh well, the scratching seems to have stopped(mostly). I have my trusty squirt bottle and I follow him around and if I hear him scratching and if those nails go anywhere near that ear, he gets a shot right in the face. Maybe I should just duct tape his ear to his head.