by Kimberly Harper

Poor Sunny! Poor Heri! I felt horrible for them, survivors of minor surgery, drooping around in their hated elizabethan plastic collars, as dejected as two dogs could be. Both dogs were slinking around, garnering a houseful of sympathy and putting on quite a drama for their unsuspecting audience. When I picked them up at the vet’s, Heri was genuinely disoriented. If he even tapped the edge of the oversized plastic collar on anything, he would gyrate and leap backwards like a fish on a line, regardless of what was in his panicked path. Sunbeam was, true to character, calmer and more stoic in her responses. If she bonked into anything with the cone collared around her neck, she went into a Ms. Freeze routine and no amount of coaxing or calling would would melt her back into motion. The only way to get either dog moving again was to grasp the top edge of the plastic cone and steer them to clear ground. We had been dealing in this manner for two days now. Heri refused to eat, and Sunbeam was moving around as little as possible, spending most of her day lying in the best chair, moaning every few minutes to remind us of her wretchedness. They were pictures of misery, hanging heads and tails and hunched shoulders, periodically emitting the most pitiful of birdlike chirps and whines. As a result, Sunny and Heri were getting more than their share of treats, petting, and comfy pillows.

My first clue to their recovery should have been the response of our other two dogs, who would touch noses in whispered conference, then turn and look at my husband and I with their most scathing looks. (They were clearly broadcasting the message, “What a couple of chumps!” but the chumps remained clueless.) My heart was filled with sympathy for Sunny and Heri. I was forgetting that these were Airedales, survivors of spirit and spunk and as mercurial as any creature on the planet. This morning, however, I did notice a change, as Heri seemed to be having a lot of “accidents”, knocking things over !with a great clash and clatter– a vase, the cat’s food station, a huge potted plant. And he didn’t seem fazed in the least. What was going on?!? No more freezing, jumping, quirking backwards out of the way! He then graduated from knocking things over to scooping things up in the collar’s edge– squeekie toys, a sandwich, dirt (which he brought in and sprinkled across the kitchen floor while I squealed and ran for the vacuum.) He and Sunny suddenly couldn’t walk past anything without slamming into it, creating an echoing crack as their cones flattened whatever they came in contact with. They looked so innocent, surprised at the random destruction left in their meandering paths.

Now the two dogs were snuffing around the yard, quietly subdued, until they caught each other’s eye. Ears went up, eyebrows raised. At once, the yard, the other dogs, people and noises slid into the background as they drew each other in and focused. Let the games begin! All trauma, misery, and depression fled in an instant. The two dogs ran at each other from across the yard, flashing in and out of the trees, dragging the edges of their previously hated conehead collars along the fence line with a joyful noise. Bam! Take that, pine tree! Wack! Take that, stupid cat. You can’t reach my nose! Hah Hah! And finally, with a clash of plastic cymbals, take that you other Airedale! The Airedales ran at each other from across the yard and slammed their coneheads together like Rams battling in the Rockies. All of a sudden, the whole miserable drama was cast aside in a wild game of “Gotcha”. The dogs raced around and around the yard, finally falling in a panting heap in the middle of the living room, open mouths laughing, tongues run out and panting, to rise again and joyfully bump everything in the household back to life. Airedales! From misery to mania in 9.5 seconds.