I think dogs get PMS. I really do. My dog Cat (that’s her name) is in heat for the first time, and she really is being a total bitch. Not only will she not let either of my two male dogs get on her (good girl), every time one of them gets within 5 feet of her she lets out the strangest bark/screech/howl I’ve ever heard. It sounds almost like someone screaming “NOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooooo” at the top of their lungs. The fact that she’s in heat makes the two boy dogs absolutely insane. They just mope around whining like little girls all day, and that’s driving ME insane. Ohhh why didn’t I get her fixed before this? Procrastination.

Why is my dog named Cat, you may ask? Originally she was named 19, because she was the only survivor out of 19 new puppies. (Warning, long story coming) My old chow dog and another dog I had (both have passed on now may they rest in peace) were both pregnant at the same time. They had their puppies on the same day. One had 9, the other had 10. I just put the whole herd of puppies and mommies on the back porch. After a couple of days, the mommy dogs started feeding each other’s babies, even though they were a good 20 feet apart. They would just go back and forth trading places, it was like they each thought that all the babies were theres and they had to feed all 19 of them. I figured that was ok since they were both doing the feeding and they weren’t fighting. What I didn’t know is that one litter of the puppies had contracted adenovirus, which is extremely contagious, and one mother was carrying it back to her litter. The adenovirus brought on canine hepatitis which is usually only fatal to newborns. One at a time those little babies just started dying. A puppy would start showing symptoms and within a few hours it would be dead. After several had died and I was finally able to reach the vet by phone, he told me to take one of the dead puppies to the Livestock Commission for an autopsy to see what it had died from, so that we may be able to save the rest. Well by the time the results came back, the rest of the puppies were dead, except one. The vet that did the autopsy said that the first puppy infected my have gotten it from a mosquito. A bit later on, the surviving puppy got sick again, this time with Parvo. She survived again. I’m thinking she must have 9 lives and re-named her from 19 to Cat. By the time she was able to get vaccinated, there wasn’t much left to be protected from.

Rich and Diane probably remember the whole 18-dead-puppies ordeal, because I was a nervous wreck. Everytime a puppy died it just tore me up.

So back to Cat. Miss Cat is NOT about to let one of these other dogs mate with her. I’ve never seen a dog in heat so fiercefully protect her virginity. It’s almost like she’s saying “I don’t want children.” She’s totally on edge, very unlike THIS GUY, who Rich showed me a few minutes ago.

Sidenote: Parvo is lethal most of the time, but it CAN be overcome if you recognize the symptoms and catch it before the dog starts vomiting. If you can’t afford to let them stay at the vet for a few days to be kept hydrated intraveneously, you can to force-feed them Pedialyte for a few days with a turkey baster. Sounds crazy but it works. When the dog becomes dehydrated from Parvo, their stomach lining starts tearing up and coming apart, that’s what kills them. So any way you can keep them hydrated with electrolytes will raise their chance of survival.