With my bigger dogs it was always the cone of shame edge into the tender back of knee as they squeezed past you. My last doberman it wasn't worth the effort, she was strung like piano wire to start with and the cone freaked her out, mostly because of lack of being able to tell sound direction I think. The one evening she had finally dozed off and I leant down to stroke her, she woke up in mid air over the coffee table like something out of scooby doo,looking surprised at herself. It was hilarious (well not according to my wife, but hey) but after that we went to an inflatable collar which was a lot more leg/furniture/nerve friendly.
