Sometimes, having a chihuahua means keeping your eye on him.
This afternoon and evening, Diego had been laying in his basket, bundled up under the blanket with his head hanging out looking forlorn. He hadn’t left it for hours, even when I sat down to dinner he didn’t run in and beg. He barked and barked when there were noises from next door.
Finally, a few minutes ago, I called him for a walk. He raised his head and moaned a bit, and I went over to put the leash on his collar… and discovered that he had a loose string from the afghan wrapped around his neck. He had been trapped there in his basket for at least the last 3 hours, if not more.
This has happened before; I once found him trapped on my bed when his collar got caught on a knitted bedspread, and I had horrible nightmares of him jumping off the bed and hanging himself. That bedspread is gone, and using a pair of pliers I closed up all the gaps in his collar and tag that could snag.
Still, I worry about him the same way that parents worry about children. If it’s not running in traffic, it’s choking on an unravelled string.
Why wear the collar in the house, why not put it on only when you leash him?
Another option is a harness rather than a collar, even if it catches on something it won’t choke him.
Actually, since I manhandled his collar with pliers, he’s not gotten it snagged. Today’s problem would have happened without a collar — he somehow put his head through a loop of string and it was wrapped around his neck.
He also goes nuts when his collar is taken off, I can only assume that he is very proprietorial about it.