After seeing Ripley getting to her tail and being able to lick the shaved area despite the collar she was wearing and not really wanting to put on another one, bigger and probably more uncomfortable and causing a lot more distress I was left with not many options to what should have been the better solution for my cat. There was no way that I could have taken her back to the vets to have another collar fitted and I didn't really want to take off the one she was wearing despite the fact that it didn't seem to do what it was supposed to do in the first place. I wasn't totally sure that it would have being for the best if Ripley was not wearing the collar for at least a few more days as it was too soon, as only four days have passed since the 'operation' and the healing was still in process.
So the only thing it was left for us to do was to just leave her be and to keep an eye on her at all possible times and to try to prevent her from licking or getting to the stitches wherever possible and to keep an eye on the wound to see if it was healing or getting worse.
Of course as Ripley wasn't so keen with her new piece of neck wear she was trying to get it off any time she had the opportunity which meant that the ribbon that was wearing to keep the collar in its place was getting lose, she was pulling it and the knot was getting undone all the time and at the same time she was eating any piece of thread that was coming from the ribbon. So as we didn't want to tie the ribbon again and make it perhaps too tight and cause an accident the only thing we could do was to cut anything that it was hanging and it was out of place and to tie it up again and again and again...The whole thing seemed to turn to a nightmare as the collar seemed to cause more trouble than done any good and I was now counting the hours till the day we could have being able finally to take it off. To make things worse my other half had to travel to London the following day for business which meant that I wouldn't have being able to take Ripley to the vet if something gone wrong unless I had some extra help...as she won't go inside her basket willingly and now with her injured tail it would have being more difficult for one person to even try!
But of course things not always going according to plan and our cats won't always do what we want them to do! So Ripley had a different opinion of how long she was going to wear that stupid collar and as cats are very intelligent and can figure out things for themselves it wasn't long before we found out on the same day the collar lying on its own under the bed and Ripley sitting happy and finally relaxed on the bed without a collar. Despite the fact that the collar was tied and very narrow at the end for her head to pass and that it was also tied up with the the ribbon she still manage to take it off without 'damaging' it. Unbelievable! Her tail seemed OK, the stitches were in place and Ripley was as happy as she was before the dreaded day of her accident, some four days before. To celebrate that new freedom she visited her bowl of biscuits a few times and she was able to eat without making a mesh and scattering all the biscuits outside, drunk plenty of water, ran freely in the rooms upstairs without bumping at doors and furniture and found her catnip cushion and had a good roll over on the carpet...
She was again a happy and relaxed cat, she could do all the things she couldn't do for four days. Even Sheng Chi finally decided to come upstairs without being scared of the black cat in the white collar anymore as now upstairs it was only Ripley sleeping on the bed and not hiding under it looking miserable and stressed.
As for her tail, well it has being now three days since the hood 'accidentally' came off and we have taken off today ourselves and she has not attempted to remove the stitches herself or seems to be bothered about them or the state of her tail anyway. Which it seems to support my beliefs once more that vets not always know what they are doing...as they would have simply told us to keep the hood for a few days and to observe the cat's behaviour if she was trying to get to the stitches to keep the hood for the whole week if not to simply remove it earlier. Besides they do not know Ripley as much as we do, she is not an adventurous cat and she have never needed a collar when she was spayed as she didn't bother with the stitches then...if the vet had simply asked me about her normal behaviour she wouldn't have to put her through this whole bad experience... a really stressful experience not only for Ripley but for the other two cats and of course us. So it seems to be true...not all vets are to be trusted and believed...
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