Poor Jay has a sore on his left side...right behind the shoulder.

The vet thinks it might be a "hotspot": a scratch or scrape or bug-bite that he has worried and irritated through licking.

But he's not SURE that it's a hot spot.

He thinks it looks "a little funny".

He wants to treat it as a hot spot for the next two weeks, and then look at it and decide if we should just take it off and get it biopsied.

the main treatment for "hotspots" appears to be: oral antibiotics, topical antiseptic/anesthetics spray, and...as the vet assistant so ironically put it...a "party hat".

Those stupid-looking funnels that go around the dog's neck and stick out past his head to keep him from licking himself.  I've also heard them referred to as "lampshades" and "Victorian collars".

But there's no gettin' around it - Jay is a funnel-head dog now, and he knows it.  His shame and humiliation are painful to watch, especially at those times when he is trying to suffer them with a sort of false dignity that is unbecoming to him.  He has never been a dignified dog, naturally, so seeing him try to fake it is heartbreaking.

The only consolation are those times he gives in to the goofiness of it by doing things like tossing a stuffed animal up into the air, and then catching it in the funnel like one of those Mexican ball-in-a-cup games.