Excuse me, sir. There's a doughnut on your head.

It's no secret: I heart me some dogs. And next to our own babies, our neighbors' dogs are, without doubt, the nearest and dearest to our hearts. Besides being Murray's and Bubba's BFFs (well, other than each other), Romeo, Othello and Remington are, frankly, just adorable.

So when Romeo got into a scuffle with another dog and came away with 15 staples in his poor, little leg, we were aghast.

And then we saw him.

And yes, his leg looked awful. But look what he had to wear to keep from bothering the wound:


Um. How CUTE is that?!

Apparently (and maybe you know this already), this innertube thingie now takes the place of the traditional (and hated) plastic cone in the way of anti-licking technology. Instead of a hard, plastic, right-in-their-line-of-sight-so-it-freaks-them-out, taking-out-your-kneecaps-and-chunks-of-drywall cone, now the dog can just gently bounce off anything that gets in his or her way, and still allow their wounds to heal.

Brilliant.

Also, Romy had a built-in pillow whenever he wanted to take a nap. He settled down, rested his head on the doughnut and zonked out. (It may have also helped that he was on some hardcore pain meds.) We took care of him for a few days while his worried parents were dealing with some work emergencies, and he did amazingly well.

We did think the doughnut might prevent him from sleeping sprawled on his back, in his usual style.

We were wrong.

Cutie pie.