Glad Murphy is still keeping his stitches intact no matter what you have to do. Ace bandages are great to have in your first aid kit for other family injury that may happen. Hopefully benadryl will keep him calmer. Very interested to find out how the snood works. If it works for Murphy, we should all order one for our doggy first aid kit that hopefully we will never need. Heal fast Murphy!!

So... just wanted to provide an update.

I spent last Thursday and Friday working from home with Murphy trying to keep an eye on him and ensure he wasn't shaking his head too much and wouldn't break open the stitches.  I thought we were doing ok...I guess I was wrong.  My boyfriend got home from work on Friday evening and Murphy got up from the couch to go greet him, shook himself out... and the stitches busted AGAIN! (I will tell you that at this point he was wearing the newly purchased snood in addition to the ace bandage underneath it.  I was looking for double layer protection at least until the first week with the stitches was up).  He shook himself right out of the snood, right out of the ace bandage and right out of the stitches apparently... so much blood... .
So off to the vet we went again.  It was emergency hours so things were a little hectic and they ended up having to keep him overnight because the on call doctor had her hands full with a bunch of urgent emergencies, but we picked him super super early Saturday morning and I think we have finally found a solution.  It's not the one I would have chosen, but if it gets his ear healed sooner rather than later then I'm okay with it and I fully trust our vet.
Rather than stitch together the two pieces of the wedge that had been forming (like they had done the last two times) the vet chose to trim the ear down about a half a centimeter (poor Murf's ears are now lopsided) and stitch the edge closed.  Then to keep him from shaking the stitches loose yet again, she flipped his ear back lightly and pinned it to his neck with two stitches.  He'll keep the ear pinned back for a week, and the closure stitches in for 2 weeks.
He's wearing a cone for the first week so he won't scratch at any of it... and he's doing really really well... considering.  I can tell it's itching him but he doesn't seem to be in any pain which is comforting.  He's still full of his usual energy which we're trying to temper with short games of fetch in the backyard (Shh... don't tell the vet) and keeping our fingers crossed that we can at least get through this first week with no mishaps!

I have to wonder if I had put some EMT gel on the original little tiny cut if we could have avoided this entire fiasco? Guess I'll never know...and I hope I never have to find out....