Still Kicking

Oh yeah. Not to worry, I'm still here.  

After my last post and then a brief absence, it was rumored that I had checked into a mental institution.  

No, sillies.

I just found myself with an elephant's butt in my throat.  And a nasty one it was.  It came crashing down with brute force just as the snow started on Tuesday.  Jon was on his way home (although painfully slowly) from work. It was one of those times that I felt so, so, lame...that when he walked in the front door, I almost burst into tears. I will spare you the details of blood and gore and pus because I love you.  Well, actually, I love my family too, but I make them look at my throat.   They are boys, however, and appreciate it's goriness.  I don't think I need pictures of my throat on my blog...

But daggone it, it's a sight to behold.

Blah, blah.  Like it's fun to read people's posts about their sob stories.  

Moving on...

Now, I am giving full disclosure at this point.  If you feel you will be disgusted with me for speaking candidly of dogs in heat, you should walk away.  

Okay, now that I just have my co-op girls left...

Soooo, Hazel, Hazel, Hazel.  

Although I have constantly shared the dark-side of Hazel, I should give her her props as well.  After the Sunday pizza incident, I turned her over to big-Daddy-JP with the tear-filled plea:  Do SOMETHING or I will seriously kill this dog.  (Would you think less of me if I said that people offered to help me out on that AND that I had already orchestrated the whole euthanasia trip in my mind?) Anyway, big-daddy-o of course did something.  He decided that the first order of business was making her cage secure enough to safely hold her while we were gone so that she could do no further damage to herself, our home, or our sanity.  He sawed and drilled and tethered and it worked.  She is now safely contained while we are gone and sleeps in her cage next to us at night.  Her panic over separation is almost gone.  

There, props given.

Hazel is a beagle.  A punk, hard-headed beagle.  She weighs just under 25 pounds.  It is important at this point that you can picture a 25 pound small dog.  

Scooby, on the other hand, while neutered (keep this in mind), is a bit larger.  He is part husky, part German Shepherd and is about 50 pounds.

Now Hazel has been in heat for about three weeks.  It is gross, it is disturbing, it is long.  Nothing like dripping a little blood along the kitchen floor to kill one's appetite.  

As I've mentioned, Hazel is only my third dog.  A dog scholar, I am not, so all of these things may be second nature to you, but to me, they are all new and so disturbing.

The second phase of this 'heat', in addition to the bleeding, is Hazel's overwhelming, all-consuming desire to have her needs met.  She does not care who or what the object is, she wants it, and if she cannot have it, she will cry.  Loudly.  For hours.  

Now what I did not know is that a neutered male dog is still, uh, capable of meeting her needs.  

I did not know that dogs of different sizes could 'work'.

I thought Scooby would have more respect for Hazel, or feel a sibling-like relationship with her and that he would be repulsed by doing it with her.

(Forgive me, I'm new at this.)

Night and day she pursued Scooby.  She circled him, sniffed him, licked him, flat-out just offered herself right up to him.  In his face.  She tempted him, she did.  

He held fast, he held strong.  He was not interested. 

But the little floosy-mama just kept after him.  She whispered sweet nothings in his ear and made empty promises to him of being the 'one'.

He caved, oh yes, he caved.  It took him about three days to figure out how to actually orchestrate the whole thing.  I'm assuming that's either because he lacked sufficient hormones to override his bumbling, nervous behavior, or because of the size difference. 

We heard screeching, terrible screeching coming from outside.  We all ran to windows and doors to help save the dogs from whatever horrible peril had befallen them.  A buck?  A wild dog?  A coyote?  

No, just Scooby and Hazel, stuck together.

Scooby was frantically trying to climb up a snowy bank, paws flailing in all directions, look of terror in his eyes.  All we could see of the little beagle was her face being dragged backwards through the snow.  Belly down, back feet totally suspended, flapping horribly, yelping wildly, look of deep regret in her eyes.  

She was stuck.  He was stuck.  

This was not a pretty scene.  We all were screaming as we had absolutely no idea this could happen.  Do we need to carry them, attached, to the vet?  Should I shoot them and put them both out of their misery?  Are they going to die?

It didn't help that poor Hazel was soaked from being dragged through the snow with absolutely no say.  Think caveman-style here.  

Fortunately, my neighbor ran out, calmed us down, and we held the dogs still for about half an hour.  Hazel's back legs never even touched the ground until they finally separated...

I would like to tell you that she learned her lesson, but in just a few days, she had convinced our neighbors big Yellow Lab (who is over 100 pounds and shares our electric fence) that he too could be in the Hazel Fan Club.  These were the dogs that Jon emphatically declared would keep dogs out of our yard and away from Hazel.

So, if any of your kids do not know about the birds and bees, there is still time to send them over and engrain weird doggy-images in their minds.  It has really turned my kids off to the whole idea....