The Draco Files

This blog is about our baby Bella, but sometimes we like to include another important member of our household…Draco.

Draco has itchy skin problems every winter. And his scratching and chewing sometimes leads to a hotspot. I try to watch out for them and treat them before they get out of control but sometimes I can’t.

And this week was one of those times. On Tuesday I noticed he had the beginnings of a hotspot and by Wednesday it was the ugliest thing I have ever seen so I made an appointment with Dr. Chun for Thursday.

Draco and I left yesterday morning at 0930 and arrived on time for our 1000 appointment. Draco weighed in at 60 pounds which is down 6 pounds since August. I am trying to keep his weigh down to help his arthritis and his knees but 60 pounds might be too low. I made a mental note to increase his food intake.

Dr. Chun buzzed away a large amount of fur to expose a large circular hotspot. He then stripped the scab off by hand. After he was done Draco had a 2-inch diameter hotspot with a ring of swollen tissue around it totally a 5-6 inch diameter. Poor baby.

Dr. Chun gave Draco pain pills, oral antibiotics, and an antibiotic spray and strict instructions for Draco to wear a cone collar for several days.

This is where the story really starts: Around 1100 we arrived at home, I put the hard clear plastic Elizabethan collar on him. After an hour of running into walls and taking off the paint, running into the back of my legs with the sharp edges of the collar and his inability to drink water with the collar on I decided I needed to go to Petco and get the Comfy Cone. The Comfy Cone is the e-collar we got for Bella after her spayed surgery. It is a semi stiff fabric e-collar which can be folded down to let the dog or cat drink and eat. Plus is a lot more comfortable for the dog, walls, and back of my legs.

I left the house at 1310 and arrived at Petco at 1320ish. I went inside and found the Comfy Cone area but there were only two. One small and one unlabeled. I had measured Draco's hard plastic cone before I left the house and I knew I needed a 12” x 21” cone. And the unlabeled one was 10” long. I grabbed the cone and went to look for a sales associate. I found one stocking dog food and said,

“Excuse me, do have any more of these in stock?”

“No,” said the sales associate curtly.

“So you are not ordering anymore?” I said.

“That’s not the question you asked.” said the sales associate rudely.

At this point my patience for dealing with difficult customer service employees left my body for the day. I asked if there was someone else I could speak with and her reply was “You don’t like my responses?”. I asked for the manager and was told she was the manager on shift. I told her I needed a larger size of the Comfy Cone and she told me "they" didn’t make a larger size. I knew this wasn’t the case because if the cone I was holding (a large) wouldn’t fit my Australian Shepherd mix then it for sure wouldn’t fit any other large breed dog.

I think the rude and rather unpleasant Petco manager saw the error in her ways because she then tried to make up for her bad behavior and looked if any another Pecto carried the apparently non-existent x-large Comfy Cone. They don’t. So I left the store at 1345.

I arrived home at 1400 and called the Petco Store Feedback toll free number and filed a report of improper sales associate behavior and service and the lacking Comfy Cone stock at all of my local Petco stores.

I then called Peapod, which has nothing to do with Draco but I was on a roll. The truck drivers have not been bring our groceries to the door in a box which is required. And they keep on packing my ripe bananas on the bottom.

After talking to Peapod, I researched Comfy Cone and found their website and contact info. I called All Four Paws and spoke with an extremely nice and helpful woman named Jaclyn. She understood my frustration and apologized for the lack of locations on the east coast. She then looked up all the locations close to me and we found a Vet in Alexandria who had recently ordered an x-large Comfy Cone. I called the vet and asked them to hold one for me, printed the directions and I was on my way at 1445.

After getting lost once, I returned home with an x-large Comfy Cone. I ran inside put it on Draco and sat down and it was 1630.

One trip to Petco, Two trips to a vet, Three phone calls to 1-800 #s, four hours of driving, $167 in bills, one Comfy Cone...making my baby Draco comfortable in his time of need....priceless.

It was totally worth the time and effort.