Biggles is scared. Really scared. And with good reason, because aliens have kidnapped his sister Beanie and left a strange duplicate in her place!  It seems that only Biggles is aware of this, no doubt because his finely honed hunting senses allow him to detect things that humans cannot. To make it easier, look very carefully at the following two images.

The real Beanie

Alien duplicate Beanie

Do you spot the difference? It’s not obvious at first, but it turns out that alien duplicates can be recognized by the whopping great blue things around their necks. Given that the aliens already have Beanie it’s surely only a matter of time before they come for Biggles too. The only defense is to stay alert and above all stay awake!

Must stay awake!

Must.. not.. fall.. asleep

Bugger!

The truth of course is that Beanie hasn’t been kidnapped by aliens, but she has been forced to wear an Elizabethan collar to stop her licking the paw she injured just before her birthday. The original injury – a tweaked nail –  healed quickly but somehow she developed a licking habit and in the space of a day managed to strip most of the fur off the affected digit. I don’t know what caused the licking frenzy; maybe it was frustration at missing her regular exercise, or maybe it was me bathing her paw in brine to ward off infection. Regardless, I was eager to avoid yet another vet bill so I took The Beanster for a quick trip to our local Pets At Home, where I purchased the blue cone of shame. While at the shop, and although hampered by a very sorry looking digit, Beanie still managed to charm the shop staff out of three treats and convince me to part with yet more hard earned cash for a pair of antlers. Yes, you read that right: antlers.

These things are the first chew toy I’ve found that reliably holds both Beanie & Biggles’ attention yet lasts for more than one session. It seems to be the cores of the antlers that our pups like the most. I dunno if they’ll hold their allure once the easily accessible bits have gone, but they’ve already helped break Beanie’s licking addiction while giving her a break from the collar.

The collar: not Beanie’s favorite purchase from the local pet shop

Both Beanie and Biggles have had to wear e-collars in the past (for their neutering ops and so on) but those were colorless and wholly transparent contraptions. The collar I bought should have been a step up from those vet-provided ones: it’s more compact and both the neck side and the open side are padded. However, Susan felt that the color and patterning on the new collar might reduce the unfortunate wearer’s peripheral vision, and I must admit Beanie seemed rather subdued when it was on. Still the collar certainly did its job: the licking has mostly stopped, Beanie is now free of the collar and back to her normal bossy self, and Biggles can finally sleep without fear of alien attack.