I have a little story I like to tell to people who are reluctant to get their dogs spayed. The story varies from person to person, depending on what I think will have the most impact. Sometimes it’s the cautionary tale of Sue, the boxer who accidentally got pregnant by her brother, had two puppies die in utero, needed an emergency c-section, then finished the month out with eclampsia. Other times it’s Myrtle, the dachshund with a life-threatening pyometra that required a $3000 emergency surgery. Mammary gland adenocarcinoma, retained placentas, you name it, I can tell a gruesome tale about it.
Sometimes you don’t even need to get that far with clients. I just explain how crummy it is to have a dog in heat around the house- the blood, the diapers, and the neighborhood dogs clamoring to get into the backyard. This is the approach I started with today, when talking to the young, well groomed college-aged couple with their pristine Maltese, Corky.
The wife was on board with me on getting Corky spayed from the get-go. The husband, resplendent in his Ed Hardy bowling shirt, made sad faces and expressed his reluctance to spay little Corky. I reached into my mental magician’s hat and produced Taffy, the Lhasa who went outside just for a minute to go to the bathroom when lo and behold, a huge shepherd scaled the 6 foot fence and had his way with her. “Before the owner could do a thing,” I intoned ominously, “They were tied.”
“They DIED?” the husband asked incredulously.
“No,” I said, “They were tied.” He asked me what that meant, so I explained how the male and female are, in essence, stuck together for 15 minutes during mating.
“So the owner couldn’t break them up?” asked the horrifed wife.
“How were they stuck together?” asked the fascinated husband. So I did a brief PG-13 explanation of the bulbus glandis and how it keeps the dogs stuck together for a good 5-20 minutes.
I looked up to see two open mouths. “Eeeeew!” exclaimed the wife, hugging Corky close.
The husband stood there staring at me in disbelief with a wrinkled brow. He inhaled. And slowly exhaled, in an awe-struck tone,
“Awesome!”
That hung in the air for a minute, before I said, “That’s the only species that can do that, you know,” and left to schedule the spay.
Thank you–I needed that laugh today!
ROTFWL! Totally a guy thing…
Oh my. Glad Corky is getting spayed.
The dam of Blade got a surprise one morning from his sire. Unfortunately Lady freaked and tried to pull away and she ended up being temporarily paralyzed for about 4 months.
Another reason I only want boy dogs.
Oh, Wow! hahahaha!
I had Akira spayed as soon as I could. (and I was even given full AKC breeding rights to her) She was my first female dog and I was not about to have the neighborhood crazies come barking at my door when she was ready to go! I didn’t care to deal with the bleeding part either. I have to deal with my own, that’s enough. 😉
For me the issue wasn’t the neighborhood dogs. It was their humans. Every crazy person that sees Piper wants her to breed with their dog because of her unusual markings. We had her spayed at 5 months. My husband’s horrified face is awesome when they ask – it is as if they’re asking us to be complicit in dog rape of our youngest daughter. As such, our roles would be reversed in the above scenario 😉
Oh.. my.. I seem to have caught a severe case of the giggles.
The Ed Hardy shirt should have tipped you off. Only overgrown frat boys wear that stuff.
Oh My what a story so funny, I needed a laugh..
I had an issue many many many years ago with my Border Collie ” Rusty” he managed to get tied with a female dog who had wandered into our yard, Me in my niavetie back then ( I was 10 ) thought they were hurting each other, after spraying them with the water hose , ( which didnt work ) LOL…. finally it was over. Phew…no one except me was none the worse for wear. It freaked me out until years later I realized what had happened. Guess I needed the birds and bees talk sooner LOLOL
My mom used to know a lady who bred Chihuahuas–not a huge thing, just occasionally one of her two or three little girls would be allowed to have a litter.
So there were a couple of nice little Chihuahua-sized pens in the backyard, with the ladies in one, and the lad in the other. Only one time she failed to notice lad’s attentions towards one of those ladies.
The neighbor’s Rottweiler had no problems scaling that little Chihuahua-sized pen.
Naturally this was pretty traumatic for the poor Chi, but miraculously she wasn’t lethally injured (how?! HOW DOES THIS HAPPEN?! I still cannot figure this out; the physics are all wrong) and somehow, again miraculously, carried a litter of Rotthuahuas* to term.
Ugliest. Dogs. Ever. Words fail me. They were so incredibly ugly. Sweet, though.
* Alternate term, suggested by my mother as she told me this story: Chihuatties.
Ok, so I posted this on Fark, since it made me laugh, and then someone posted this story, which (despite its fairly graphic nature) I had to share here:
When we rescued Max, the abused and shot rhodesian ridgeback/boxer, my husband was reluctant to get him fixed. Then one night, as I was lying on the couch reading, with Max asleep on the floor, he started running and snuffling in his sleep. We knew he’d been abused, and his noises got more and more frantic and awful – I thought he was dreaming of being beaten or shot. So I reached down to pet him and wake him up from his nightmare …. and he ejaculated all over my arm. This is a 90-lb dog, too. It was a LOT.
Yes, virginia, there are doggie wet dreams.
When I related the story, my husband laughed and laughed, until the exact same thing happened to him the next day.
Needless to say, Max went to the vet the following morning.
To which someone replied, “Your dog just misunderstood your command when you told him to “come here.”
(BTW, not sure if you allow HTML in your posts, but on the off-chance that this posts without it, the story starts at “When we rescued Max” and ends with “the following morning”.)
Oh my god. That’s a new one to me! Yet another story to add to my arsenal….or maybe not….
Kari – *snort*
If I had been drinking coffee when I read that, it would’ve come straight out my nose.