A Weekend Incident

This is my girl, Layla. She is an awesome dog. But, she has a little habit. No, she doesn't eat poop. She likes to chew her nails.

See? I told you. But, there is something she really doesn't like to do.

She doesn't like to wear diapers.

I can't say that I blame her. I wouldn't want to wear diapers, either.

We didn't have her spayed because, since she is such an awesome dog, we wanted to breed her. We thought it would be nice to have one of her puppies since she is truly the best dog we've ever owned.

She is very petite for a doberman, 55 lbs. We've owned two other females and they were 70 lbs. a piece. So, when I took her in June for her yearly vaccinations I talked to the vet about breeding her. Because of her small size - he said she couldn't be bred with a male larger than 70 lbs. That would make it kind of hard to find a stud that small. And, really, we wouldn't want a whole litter of abnormally small Dobbies. Couple that with the reality that our house truly isn't large enough to have two of her running around, and we came to a decision. We would get her spayed before her next heat. That was great. In theory.

She came into heat a few months sooner than expected. Bum-mer. This heat has been really hard on her. She has been extremely lethargic. And she cries. All. The. Time. She will lay on the floor next to me and just let out this deep, pitiful, continuous moan. I feel so bad for her. So, we decided that as soon as she was out of heat we'd take her to be spayed. Then, Saturday night happened.

We've had other un-spayed females and never had a problem before. Well, let me tell you - we've got a problem now. Saturday night I let her out into our fenced in back yard to go potty before we shut the house up for bed. A couple of minutes later as I walked into the kitchen, I saw something out the window. I yelled!

"THERE'S A DOG IN OUR YARD!!!" And I ran to the back door and hollered for Layla.

In the mean time, my hubby is running to the back door and reaching for the BB gun. The uninvited dog made his way out underneath the back of the fence. It is really tight and has a wire running the whole length of the bottom to make it even stiffer. Incidentally, we found that he had dug his way into our yard. He came right back, too.

We don't know whether or not he got her. Oh, I pray he didn't get her. But now, I can't let her out without standing right there and watching. So, she can't be outside much right now. She loves to be outside. She cries to be outside. But no-oo. She has to stay inside most of the day and wear those wretched diapers. They don't want to stay in place the way you see them in catalogues. And if we're really lucky - she will find a way to occasionally get her diaper off and rip it to shreds. Kind of like, "There. That's what I think of those things!" And she is not a dog to destroy things. I can honestly report that she has never chewed the first sock, shoe or piece of furniture. But, let her get her diaper off and we've got confetti, Baby!

Since our little weekend incident I can add another item to my Monday 'to do' list. I get to call the vet and find out if I can get her in to spayed this week while she's still in heat. Do they even do that? Ay, ay, ay! I guess I'll be finding out.