dog training – Natters Matters

The Vet (Part 2)

So remember how I said that I thought my dog being in heat would not in anyway hurt her spay appointment. Ha! How naive of me, I was so wrong!

After being my dog’s biggest creepy stalker and watching for pregnancy symptoms like a hawk for about three weeks, I just was not 100% sure if Ginger was or wasn’t pregnant. I called the vet, hoping I could just reschedule it only two more weeks out just to give me some more time to observe. I really did not want the puppies to die in a spay if she even was pregnant. They told me that they could not spay her until six weeks after her heat. She was about a week off.

The poor secretary told me that I would have to reschedule it another month out. The bright side to this was that I would be able to know for sure if she was pregnant by that point.

Most people wish that their dog could talk so they could tell them just how much they love them. I honestly just wanted my dog to be able to talk so she could tell me if she was pregnant.

Me: “Hey Ginger did you have a fling with that one dog?”

Ginger: “Yes I did, and you can expect puppies in your apartment in six weeks lol.”

In reality though, asking my dog such questions would only result in her staring at me with a confused look on her face wondering if I wanted to take her outside or if we were going to work again.

I will warn you that if you don’t handle bodily functions well, the next few paragraphs might not be a fun read. If you are someone who has owned animals that have birthed little minions or are just really not bothered by these kinds of things, read on.

The main things I was watching for her was 1) to get fat 2) produce milk and 3) discharge. Yes, none of that is especially fun to think about or look for on a dog, but according to my new best friend Google, they were dog pregnancy symptoms.

She did not get fat.

Ginger has been super skinny since I had taken her in, and I really did want to get her to fatten up a bit. Unfortunately my efforts were thwarted by constant diarrhea and her pickiness. When I say picky, I mean, I could not get this dog to eat anymore than a little bit of whatever I gave her. I tried white rice, eggs, chicken broth, different dry food, pumpkin, peanut butter, and lets just face it, there was no way that we could afford to feed her the raw diet. Thus, I stared at my dog wondering why she had chosen the path of the anorexic even while possibly growing babies in her belly.

Produce milk? Well that’s complicated because they do not technically produce milk until the last week of pregnancy. Granted, her nipples had not shrunk back to their proper size since she had been in heat, but sometimes that took months to go down after being in heat one time.

Discharge? Like clear discharge from a dog’s vagina? Yup… I would come home and find her laying on her back with a big, stringy blob between her legs. After this started happening, I just called it as she was pregnant.

So what did I do? I called the vet… again to cancel her appointment and try and reschedule again. Only this time they did not let me reschedule and told me to wait until the puppies were born.

Puppies… my dog was going to birth puppies in my 80% carpeted apartment.

The Vet (Part 1)

I grew up with girl dogs. I love girl dogs and boy cats. Granted, there is nothing inherently wrong with boy dogs. I struggle with them wanting to pee on walls and every other tree, but other than that, I am just biased towards wanting a girl dog because I grew up with them. My husband had the same experience growing up so we ended up with a female husky.

The thing that sucks about owning a female pet of any kind though is that getting them spayed is not cheap. Nothing at the vet is cheap, and this is why my frugal self does not like going to the vet. I do take my dog to the vet because I need her to have her rabies shots for my safety and to have her in my apartment. She needs her distemper and Bordetella in order to come to work with me.

Regardless, setting up her spay appointment was not something that I was super enthusiastic about doing, but I did schedule it right away when I got her. I hit a minor speed bump though when I called in late November, and they said that I could not bring her in until February… late February, two months later.

In case you don’t know, a female dog can go into heat anytime after she turns six months old… at which was the exact age I acquired her. This was one of those things that I really, really should have asked her previous owner if she had already been in heat because I basically had to just stare at my dog awkwardly watch for signs of going into heat.

You might say, “what’s the big deal? You live in an apartment. It’s not like she’s wandering around through the neighborhood getting to know all of the other dogs.”

I would say back, “You don’t understand. I work at a facility which has plenty of dogs who are not fixed and the one place that I can let her run around unsupervised has an intact male labradoodle currently.”

Also, if you read the Potty Training stories, you know that whenever she is left alone at home too long, my apartment and sanity suffer for it.

My husband had the smart idea of calling another vet.

Here’s the thing, I am not arguing with his logic, what I am saying is that I am frozen into going to the same vet until they do me wrong. Vets are one of those things where I feel obligated to go to the same one. I also did not want to go to another vet only to find out that they thought I was the worst pet owner in existence because I did not give my dog fifteen different supplements, depression medication, and a raw diet as a cherry on top.

Even though it literally makes absolutely no sense for me to drive forty five minutes for me to go to the same veterinary clinic when I live within fifteen minutes of five different veterinarian hospitals. Anxiety over new things can almost never be talked out of its irrational behavior, and to be honest, I just didn’t want to go to a different vet.

Also, so what if she went into heat before her spay, I knew that I would just have to keep her away from the very horny male dogs. Easy peasy. Besides, it’s not like they can’t fix her while she’s in heat, right? Right?

Her heat lasted about two and half weeks which was a hassle in of itself. Thankfully her bleeding was not as heavy as we had expected. We did buy her doggy diapers, but they were not entirely necessary and more work than worth it to get on her and keep on her. I mean, Ginger is the kind of dog that I would spend ten to twenty minutes struggling to get winter boots and a harness on her.

So when the bleeding stops, we should be in the clear?

Nope.

Don’t be so optimistic.

I found out through some more obsessive Googling that it would be another ten days of a fertile window. So more time, of trying to keep an eye on her to make sure that no horny males found her. Neither I or Ginger particularly enjoyed this time because it meant less time to play and more time in the kennel.

Her bleeding stopped about a month before her vet appointment. A new set of questions entered my Google search… “signs of pregnancy in dogs.”

Now I need to say this.

I did not see anything happen… but again due to the nature of my job and the natural order of things with animals. I always suspected something may have very likely, quite possibly occurred between her and another dog.

The unhelpful thing about Google is that it will give you some very irrelevant and useless information about rare, but wait no, not rare, actually it is very wrong, nope, now this is a common occurrence.

One of those unhelpful things is the notion of phantom pregnancy which is rare, but also quite common in dogs, or so Google tells me. Phantom pregnancy is when a dog shows all symptoms of pregnancy and adopts her toys as pups even though the animal is not in fact pregnant.

So what did I do?

I watched closely and waited…

But I thought…

The owner pulled up, and I got out of my car with money in my pocket not really sure what to expect.

I was surprised by the fact that her owner had brought her kids along. Immediately I had the feeling of dread that they would start crying and calling for the dog… but such anxieties were misplaced. They were quite content just playing on their iPads while their mom handed me all of the dog’s food bowls, food, toys, papers, and bedding… when I was just expecting the papers.

My brain was going a kazillion miles per hour, and I had a lot of questions that I should have asked, but I didn’t. The owner brought the dog out on a brand new leash and collar. My first thought was, “holy cow, she’s tiny.”

“Yeah, her parents were both super small.”

Now I’ve seen quite a few huskies… so when I say, this one was small. I mean that this was the littlest husky that I have come across that wasn’t a mix with something else.

Anyways, I brought her into my car and was overwhelmed by the fact that I actually owned a dog.

We drove back to the apartment, and this is where the anxiety and common sense finally woke up inside of me.

I walked her around the building a few times to make sure that if she had to go potty, she had the chance to. However, as soon as I brought her into the apartment, she ran into the living room and began to poop.

Panicked, I was definitely not the smartest and chased after her and brought her outside again… and she refused to poop in front of me.

Alright, one accident, no big deal, it’s still the first day.

Then a second issue arose, she wouldn’t eat… like anything… at all.

Naturally as anyone in my generation does. I quickly googled to see if all of this was normal for a dog who was rehomed. Yes, this was all very normal for a dog who was going through the transition process of one home to another.

The third issue was the breakdown point for me. I was looking through her shot record and realized something… her distemper was not updated. For anyone who hasn’t brought their dog into a boarding facility before, there are two (sometimes three) shots that are absolutely required before you can bring your dog in with the others: rabies and distemper.

Thankfully I had the rabies certificate in hand because otherwise I would not have been able to even get her into our apartment building.

I communicated with the owner, and the records that I had were correct. The distemper was expired… I called the vet clinic in a panic, and they couldn’t get her in for another two weeks.

Say what now?

My little plan was falling to pieces… which anyone with two eyes could have seen coming.

I thought I was bringing home a potty trained, up to date shots, big husky… but life is full of disappointments.

But I wasn’t gonna give up just yet… thankfully, my husband’s work ended when my work in the evening began. So for the next two weeks we were just going to have to tag team it which we did to the best of our ability.

Did I mention that this all was the kick off to our Thanksgiving week? After this experience I would not recommend getting a dog during the holiday season.