50 Shades of Doggy Love (or This is My Life, Y’all)

Warning: This post is not for the faint-hearted, conservative or delicate. Explicit material follows. Seriously – if you’re the least bit sensitive or easily offended by messy life details, walk away. There’s no moral or lesson at the end of this. It will simply serve to make you feel better about your own life.

We have three dogs. Because when you have four kids, you may as well have three dogs, too. What’s a little more crazy added to a big mess of crazy, right?

Dog one is Rose. She’s a 50lb, 15 year old shepherd mix that thinks she’s still queen of the house even though she’s deaf, the arthritis in her hips makes her back legs occasionally fall out from under her, and she hates all of her subjects (except for my husband). Every now and then she lets me pet her, but only for about a minute and a half before she huffs and walks away.

Dog two is Davey. Davey is deeply stupid. He’s super sweet and loveable, but still…deeply stupid. He’s a big, 70lb, three year old marshmallow that goes out of his way to slink under the table to get away from Queen Rose if she looks his way, stands near him or if he thinks she may look his way or stand near him. We’re pretty sure his vision is a little off since he doesn’t look at us straight-on and occasionally barks at the wall when there’s NOTHING there.

Dog three is Jill. Jill is the little 35lb newbie spitfire. She’s a pure-bred black mouth cur from a line that my husband assures me is super awesome and important to anyone who knows anything about hunting dogs (more on that later). Jill is not quite two years old, and she’s pretty sure that she should in fact be the new queen of the house. Usually she is content to let Rose be the puppet queen, though, while Jill rules from the shadows.

Now Rose and Davey are fixed because Rose was a rescue dog and we definitely wouldn’t want to pass Davey genes on to another generation. Jill, however, is not fixed. I lost that battle because my husband and oldest daughter think having puppies will be “fun,” and “sweet,” and “cute,” and “a good learning experience.” Plus – duh – awesome breed. Now personally, when I think puppies, I think puppy poop and puppy chewing and puppy vaccines and weird fluids spraying all over my bed, which I’m sure is where Shadow Queen Jill will choose to give birth.

In case you’re not as intimately acquainted with dog biology as I now am, EVIDENTLY, when a dog goes into heat, she’s similar to a human woman and her hormones start going all haywire. Not that it’s ever happened to me, but I’ve heard about it. These supercharged hormones can sometimes lead to higher levels of aggression. Sort of like when a woman is PMSing and she decides she’s perfectly justified in speeding up to cut off the driver who cut her off a few minutes ago, then tapping her breaks repeatedly before slowing down to 15 below the speed limit…a friend of mine did that once…Anyway, Jill is in heat right now.

So the other day, right after the older two kids caught the school bus, Shadow Queen Jill took offense to the way Queen Rose looked at her. That’s all it took before Jill charged, Rose tried to fight back, and the fur was (literally) flying. My husband was able to break them up and throw Jill outside while we tended to the dethroned Queen. Davey, who is scared of Rose but thinks Jill is his Guinevere, followed the victor into the backyard.

My husband left for that job thing he does, and I started feeding the younger two, which is part of the job thing I do. I glanced out the back window occasionally, and discovered that apparently Davey was a bit excited by the girl fight he witnessed and was trying to hump whatever part of Jill he could catch. He was trying to mount her head, side, front leg, it didn’t matter. (Did I mention the deeply stupid part?). I figured Jill could clearly take care of herself and left them to it.

A few minutes later I heard a weird noise in the laundry room, which is where we have a doggy door. I opened the door to see what was going on, where I see Jill standing still almost all the way inside the doggy door. Hmmm…that’s odd. I walk closer and see Davey standing outside the door, and they’re ATTACHED. THROUGH THE DOGGY DOOR. ATTACHED. How does that even happen?!

I called my husband to say, “This is your fault, these are your dogs, now WHAT THE HELL DO I DO?” Between inappropriate giggles he told me to call my friend that’s a vet. I tried that, but of course she didn’t answer because she has a life that doesn’t, in fact, revolve around my crazy dogs. So I tried my sister’s office, which may seem odd, but she actually works for a vet also.

God was smiling on me that day, because a doctor actually answered the phone.

Doctor: “What can I help you with?”

Me: “Well, my dogs are kind of stuck together. Like, their bottoms won’t come apart.” Please don’t make me be any more explicit. Actually saying dog penis aloud to a stranger would be the icing on the cake of this crap morning.

Doctor: “Oh. Hmmm. Well, how long has it been?”

Me: “I don’t know, a few minutes, maybe?” It feels like my whole life. I’ve been looking at this mess my whole life.

Doctor: “They should probably separate on their own in a minute or two, but hold on, let me check something….Well. Unfortunately, it could take an hour or two.”

Me: “What?!!” Are you freaking kidding me?!!!!

Doctor: “Just leave them alone and they’ll come apart when they can.”

Me: “Ok. So…it turns out that they’re stuck together through the doggy door.”

Doctor: “……..They’re tied together through the doggy door?”

Me: “Yeah, one is on the inside of the door and the other is on the outside.”

Doctor: “……”

You put me on mute and you’re laughing at me, aren’t you.

Doctor: “First, take a picture, because that’s hilarious.”

Men.

There. Don’t you feel better about yourself now? And no, I didn’t take a picture, you pervert.