Saturday, January 23, 2016

The One Where I'm Horrified

So. It's like this. I want to crawl into a hole and live there until I starve to death. That's how embarrassed I am right now.

We have this dog. She's eight months old. We haven't had her spayed because of...reasons. We might breed her. We might not. We haven't decided. Since we haven't decided, we haven't spayed her.

(Now let me just take a minute right now to say that, yes, we believe in pet adoption. Of course we support shelters. We believe that shelter dogs are always an excellent option. We just also feel perfectly fine about buying purebred puppies that have papers. You can go ahead and leave a comment on this blog about how irresponsible we are and how we're contributing to the overpopulation of dogs while other animals wait in our local shelter for the chance to be loved if you want to. However, I'm only interested in reading the comments left by those of you who have also adopted children and/or financially supported orphan care. While I hardly want to sit here comparing children to pets, the same arguments you're about to make can be applied to biological children and adopted children. So you can preach to me about ONLY getting a shelter dog and the irresponsibility of pet breeding AFTER you tangibly support children who need homes.)

We haven't spayed our dog yet and everything I've read about goldens says that even though they MIGHT go into heat as early as six months, most of them are closer to a year. So, when I asked my friend, Christy, if she could watch my dog while we're out of town for a couple of days, I really didn't think it would be a problem.

Oh, you see where this is going, do you?

I warned my friend, because I'm very take care of business like that. "She hasn't gone into heat yet. I really don't think she will but you need to consider that she could, blah blah blah." Christy and Jeremy have watched our dogs, our children, you name it. They're great friends so they said, "Yeah. Sure."

I even checked the dog before she left on Thursday night because I would have straight up canceled my trip if I saw any signs of her going in to heat. The websites say they'll be temperamental, possibly aggressive and agitated. Nope. She was just our psychotic, happy-go-lucky pup.

And, OF COURSE, I got a text yesterday telling me that she's in heat. It's not bad, apparently. She's taking care of herself, apparently. It's not a super, big deal, apparently. I want to kill myself. Apparently. I hope that we can one day look back on this experience and laugh and say, "Remember that one time when our dog went into heat all over your house?" I'm not there yet.

I'm still firmly in Camp Horrified.

Who does that? Who sends their dog over to their friends' house for three nights WHILE SHE'S IN HEAT? THIS GIRL! Granted, I didn't know. Granted, it didn't happen until we were already well on our way. But there is a special place in purgatory reserved for people who talk loudly at the theatre and PEOPLE WHO GIVE THEIR DOG TO FRIENDS WHILE SHE'S IN HEAT. (Okay, theologically, I don't believe that but, at the moment, it feels true.)

Jeremy and Christy, you guys are the absolute best friends and I can't thank you enough for watching our dog while she's in such a condition. I may never face you again but I'm glad we got to be friends for these past eight years. I love you! And Tessie does too. She just has a very bizarre way of showing it.

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