Elizabethan collars are named after clothing worn in the time of Queen Elizabeth I
Elizabethan collars are named after clothing worn in the time of Queen Elizabeth I

One of my clients was talking about his recently neutered bitch today. “She needs one of those Victorian Buckets” he said. I knew what he was talking about, but his terminology was not quite correct. The problem was that his bitch had been licking her operation wound, and he wanted to stop her. The item he was describing is an important tool to assist the healing of animals’ wounds. It is more correctly called an ‘Elizabethan Collar’, because it resembles the white starched lace collars that Queen Elizabeth I and her subjects used to wear. Most people have seen animals wearing these large, lampshade-shaped cones, fastened around their necks and extending up around their heads.

Animals have a strong instinct to lick their wounds. In moderation, such licking can be cleansing and beneficial. The problem is that animals do not know when to stop. Excessive licking causes redness, soreness and itchiness, and this makes an animal want to lick a wound more and more. It is a vicious circle – the more licking , the more sore a wound becomes, and the more the animal wants to lick it. In the worst cases, a wound can be completely prevented from healing. Animals have even been known to cause themselves serious open wounds by biting and chewing itchy areas.

Drugs can be used to ease the itchiness, but they are seldom adequate alone. The only sure answer is the Elizabethan collar. These were originally home-made by vets, using pieces of cardboard, or by cutting the bottoms out of buckets. However, it was not always easy to create a finished product which was effective.

Modern pet Elizabethan collars are custom-made from shiny lightweight plastic. They are manufactured in different sizes, to suit anything from a kitten to a Great Dane. They have become more sophisticated as time has passed, and there is now a range of different products available. The traditional collars are made from white plastic, but these restrict an animal’s vision, causing animals to crash blindly around the house, bumping into people and furniture. Some modern collars are semi-transparent, to allow animals to see where they are going. We often advise people to line the outer edge of the collar with elastoplast, to blunten the sharp plastic edge which can otherwise cause painful scratches on an owner’s legs as an excited animal barges past.

Attaching the collar to the animal can be a fiddle – buckles and slots are fitted into place and the whole construction is strung onto the animals normal leather collar.

Owners sometimes feel that it is unfair to inflict these collars on their animals, but you only need to see one example of the serious damage which self mutilation can cause to realise how important it is to stop some animals from reaching their wounds.

Animals cope with the imposition of an Elizabethan collar in different ways. Most accept their fate sadly but in a quietly resigned fashion. Some Labrador-types seem to enjoy their new ‘hats’, and they dash around the room enthusiastically causing chaos as they bounce off walls, people and objects. Some cats do what I call an ‘Elizabethan Dance’, when they twist, leap and pirouette in an effort to escape the collar. After an initial uneasy settling in period, most pets do not mind this odd looking, but very effective structure.

There are, of course, a number of modern alternatives, from inflatable life-ring type products to neck braces to soft floppy collars. Some of them are definitely worth trying, but as is often the case in life, I suspect that the reason there are so many alternatives is that nobody has yet found the perfect way of preventing pets from interfering with their own wounds.