Breeding Bitches

When I was a youngster I knew for sure that one of the most important functions of a woman is to produce at least one baby, preferably by the time she was 20.  In fact, the subject was not up for discussion until I was in my teens and the pill was invented, giving women a choice in the matter. In those days, if a young woman announced that she had decided not to have children, you could read the thoughts going through the mind of whoever she was speaking to as plainly as if they were written on that person’s forehead:

“Not having any children?  I feel something wrong and she too shame to say, so she just playing brave.  But I always thought she was kinda selfish, you know.  Only thinking about herself all the time – what about the husband?  What about the grandparents – they going to be too sad about this foolishness. So what she get married for in the first place?  These young people ain’t play they could make you feel shame, nuh.”

Then in the late 60s and early 70s a new movement came into being in the midst of much ridicule and resistance.  It was called the Women’s Liberation Movement and one of the things that it said was, “I am a woman.  This is my body. I can do whatever the hell I want with it.  And if you don’t like it, you can kiss my rosy red cheeks!”  Now, more than four decades later, only people who were born before 1940 would think twice about an announcement from a woman that she had decided to remain childless.  And even they probably won’t say anything other than “Oh.”  (Perhaps if they are friendly with either of the couple’s parents they might also console them by assuring them that their children will change their minds in time. But that would be about it – no gossip, no stigmatization, no judgements.) We’ve come a long way, baby!

 However, although this change has come surprisingly quickly, it is not universal.  In some countries, particularly Eastern countries, a woman is still expected to present her husband with at least one child.  The child is usually considered the husband’s property, but the care of it remains with the woman until the (girl)child is married or the (boy)child becomes old enough to fend for himself. 

 The change has not come to the canine world either.  It is still accepted by almost everyone that if you have a female dog, then she should produce at least one litter of puppies.  If you ask the reason for this, you will find there is usually no particular reason – it’s just because the dog is a female.  As with women of a generation ago, it is simply expected.

 I know some people will find it strange to compare human female issues with canine female issues, but I have personally found a strange similarity between the two.  Both dogs and women are admired mostly for their beauty and conformity to what society has decided is beautiful.  Both female dogs and women are expected to be docile, obedient and loyal – not to mention self sacrificing if necessary.  Both female dogs and women are called bitches – albeit not with the same meaning (leaving me to wonder if calling a female dog a bitch is not meant as an insult as well).

I even find a correlation in the whole issue of birth control.  The Catholic Church, and many men from male-dominated cultures, are totally against a woman preventing pregnancy. Likewise, whenever you tell someone that you are going to spay your dog, they usually try to talk you out of it, saying in consternation “But whyyyyy?”

I don’t know if medicine had already found a way to neuter dogs when I was a child – if they did I had never heard of it, and everyone I knew who had a dog, sooner or later had at least three or four puppies rolling around their yards. Although neutering has been available for several years, I meet an astonishing number of people who still don’t know that it can be done. Or more frequently, they  see it as an unnecessary expense when it is much easier and cheaper just to let the dog have her pups.

And why not? Everybody likes puppies.  They are adorable, they smell nice, they lick your faces with their little tongues and suck on your fingers, they feel good to hold and tickling their small, round tummies is one of life’s purest pleasures.  When they get a little older, watching them gambolling, tumbling head over heel in pursuit of a child or a butterfly, could bring a smile to the face of Scrooge himself. In a world that is already so hard, where all of life’s simple pleasures seem to be slipping away every day, why can’t we indulge ourselves in the unadulterated joy of watching a mother dog feeding and grooming her fat little babies?

And there is also the issue of monetary rewards.  After all, purebred dogs and even crosses between purebred dogs are very expensive to buy and maintain.  If you can get back some of your investment in your dog by selling the pups from the female dog, why shouldn’t you?  You could have the best of both worlds – a dog that is a beloved family pet, as well as a source of income, and you don’t have to get up in the morning and face traffic to go to the office to do it either!

The answer is that you shouldn’t breed for lots of reasons.  But they all boil down to one reason – for the good of the dog.  By ‘the dog’ I mean dogs all over the country, and by extension all over the world.  Think globally, act locally.  People who are asked to spay and neuter, are being asked to be selfless – to put aside their own desires and to think of an entire species of animal.  To think of its health, to think of its welfare, to think of its impact on the earth we live in, to think (dare I say it?) of its happiness.

If you breed your dog you need to understand that you might become one of those people who are responsible for canine cruelty.  There are hundreds of dogs on the streets of this country and in shelters.  Almost all of them were once owned by a human.  Before coming to the shelters, these dogs were neglected, beaten, starved, burned with cigarettes, hot oil, hot water and fire.  Their flesh was cut into by collars that were too tight and sometimes made of wire; their wounds and illnesses were left untreated and their fur left unwashed and un-groomed.  They were driven insane by isolation and lack of socialization and they were forced to fight or work at jobs for which they are not suited and under appalling conditions. They were abandoned by people they trusted and rejected and hurt by people they didn’t even know. Many dogs live like this in their own homes. And all of this has happened because somebody decided to breed their dog.

Before you breed your dog, you should be able to answer yes to all of the following questions:

1.               Can you afford the cost of proper (health and nutrition) pre-natal care for the mother dog?

2.               Do you have a vet whom you can depend on to give emergency as well as normal attention to your dogs?

3.               Do you have an area where the mother and her pups can be safe, warm and clean for at least 7-9 weeks after birth?  Most people in this country sell their pups at 5-6 weeks.  This is wrong, wrong, wrong.

4.               Can you afford the cost of post-natal care for the mother and the puppies, including food, vitamins, inoculations and any unforeseen expenses that might arise?

5.               Can you devote the time necessary to begin the socialization process for the puppies?

6.               Do you have the will to closely question any prospective buyer and do follow up visits and investigations to ensure that the puppy will be going to a safe and loving environment?

7.               If you can not get homes for all of the pups, can you afford to keep them permanently?  And by “afford” I mean both financially and physically – do you have sufficient space and are you patient enough to deal with the needs of a multitude of dogs?

8.               Are you chiefly concerned about the improvement of the breed if your dogs are purebred, and do you know enough about the breed to educate any prospective buyers on it?

Unless you can answer yes to all of these questions, you should not breed.

 People often feel pressured to breed their dog if it is purebred and registered.  But being purebred and registered simply means that the owner can trace his dog’s ancestry – somewhat like royal families.  And just like many members of royal families, it does not necessarily mean that the dogs should reproduce. Yes, it is flattering to have lots of people begging you to use your male dog to impregnate their female, or bugging you to use their male dog to impregnate your female so they can get a puppy.  But responsible dog ownership is not about satisfying your ego.  It is about doing the right thing by your specific dog, and all dogs in general, whenever possible.

BLOOD AND BONES

Early yesterday morning, as usual, I started my day by shovelling poop.  I was going to say ‘shovelling shit’, but although it has a certain ring to it, it is a vulgar expression and I am genteel, so I decided against using it.  Anyway, after I had picked up all the excrement which the dogs had, well, excreted during the night, I hosed down and disinfected the back of the house, the side, the garage, the front, and the other side.  After turning the hose off, I went back to the garage to sweep away the water that always collects near to the gate. 

WTF!! There was blood everywhere! The garage looked like some creature had bled to death in it.  It wasn’t there a few minutes before, and I had not heard any barks, yelps, growls or anything else that would have alerted me that one dog had the other in a death grip, but I just knew right away that either Rescue or Sahara had really bitten Aslan badly this time.  My heart started to jackhammer and I ran to the back of the house where all the dogs were lying in front of the back door, waiting for me to let them in the house. 

Aslan and Sahara got to their feet when they saw me – Aslan because he is skittish, Sahara because she is nervous and always seems to be expecting a blow.  The other two didn’t move a muscle – Rescue was on his back, feet waving limply in the air, while he let the early morning sun tan his exposed tummy.  Hope was sprawled out on her stomach seemingly fast asleep. I managed to grab Aslan before he could bolt and anxiously ran my hands over his body, fully expecting them to come away covered in gore.  Nothing.  I did it again, this time more carefully, but still nothing.  I checked Sahara and Rescue and Hope.  Nothing, nothing and nothing.  Maybe one of them had caught a bird.  Maybe there was a criminal with a bleeding gunshot wound hiding somewhere in my yard. Maybe I had hallucinated the whole thing.  I even went back to check – no, the blood was still there, more pink now than red as it mixed in with the water on the ground left from when I had hosed down the garage. 

I couldn’t figure it out, so I decided to let it go and washed the garage again and swept away the water.  Calling the dogs to me, we all went inside – Rescue barging in front of everyone as usual.  There is a school of thought that dogs should never enter or exit a room in front of a human because it gives them illusions of superiority.  I think that is a lot of doggy excrement – I want my dogs to go ahead of me, that’s what I pay them for – to take the bullet in case there is an assassin waiting to kill me. It is a good thing I think like this too, because by his going ahead I was able to see the bloody paw prints that Rescue left on the tiles – his right front paw was leaking a small river of blood. 

When I looked at it closely I realized that he had managed to break off one of his toe nails and that it had broken below the quick.  They always warn you not to cut a dog’s toe nail below the quick or it will bleed, and I’ve had birds whose nails bled when I was clipping them, but I never realized just how copiously one little nail could bleed.  Of course, in calm retrospect, I realize that it was not a blood bath that I had seen in the garage, but a little blood mixed with a lot of water.  The worse part of the whole thing was that Rescue did not even seem to notice it.  This is why I need a prescription for Valium.

After feeding the dogs and doing some more morning chores, I got dressed to go out.  When my dogs see me undressing they get very alert.  When I actually turn on the shower they become restless and by the time I am dressing they are pacing the floor.  I used to worry that these were signs that they had separation anxiety and I read several books on what to do about it.  It took me a while to realize that what I thought was anxiety was actually happiness, because they were soon going to be faced with a win-win situation.  Either I would take one or more of them with me, or they would be one of the ones being left behind who would get a treat.  They couldn’t lose whatever happened. 

That day they were all getting treats as nobody was going with me.  I stuffed two Kongs with cheese, kibble, peanut butter and hot dog sausages for Aslan and Hope, who were staying inside, and I took two huge bones out of the freezer for Rescue and Sahara who would be taking the outside guard duty shift that morning.  I am saying that sarcastically because those two pit bulls would probably end up guarding any thief who came around them.  I boil very large beef bones with vegetables and garlic and keep them wrapped separately in the freezer to give to the dogs when I might be gone more than 3 or 4 hours as it keeps them occupied for a long time.  Since we got Sahara I’ve never given her a bone, but she took it willingly enough and of course Rescue took his like it was manna from heaven. 

When I got back home the bones had disappeared.  I was a little surprised that they had been able to eat the whole thing, because these were huge, very hard bones, but I knew that Rescue’s jaws could pulverize steel beams, so I didn't think much of it.  I let the two inside dogs out and they immediately went around the side of the house to go potty.  Aslan soon came back inside, but Hope remained outside and when I looked through the window I could see her busily digging a hole in a vegetable bed that I’ve been trying to grow melongene plants in for the longest while.  She was a little distance from the melongene plant, but I knew it would only be a matter of time before she backed into it or trampled over it, so I called her inside.  It was time for dinner anyway.  I fed the dogs and Hope disappeared again right after eating.  I went on the computer and forgot about her.  Unlike the other dogs she can still squeeze through the security gate, so she more or less comes and goes as she likes. 

About twenty minutes later I heard a noise from the front door and when I went to investigate, I saw that Hope had come inside and was now struggling to drag something through the bars of the gate.  Mission accomplished, she trotted happily into the living room with the biggest, nastiest, bone you have ever seen in your life clenched determinedly between her jaws.  Her mouth was stretched open to capacity to accommodate the bone which was about the same size as her head, and her neck was also stretched to capacity to keep the bone from dragging on the ground.  I have no idea how she got it all the way inside, especially as the journey involved several steps up, and several steps down as well as crossing two drains. 

Aslan woke up from his snooze on the couch, sniffed the air and immediately jumped down to investigate.  Without losing her grip on her treasure, Hope growled menacingly at him and he backed off a little, eyeing her warily while clearly wondering how to get the bone away from her.  She growled again and he backed further away.  She can get up on the couch only if she takes a gigantic leap while in full flight, and there was no way she could make that leap with that enormous bone in her mouth, so she wiggled under the couch and proceeded to gnaw at it, dirt, pebbles, dry leaves and all. 

 It wasn’t too long before Rescue got wind of what was taking place and tried to force his bulk under the couch too.  Unhindered by the bone which was now in a death grip between her two front paws, she snarled like a wild cat at him.  Unlike Aslan, he did not demean himself by backing off, but he didn’t advance any further either. 

 I was in a quandary about what to do.  On the one hand, I was extraordinarily impressed that this little puppy was able to sniff out a bone that one of the older dogs had buried probably hours before, especially as the rain had fallen that afternoon.  Not only that, she had struggled and laboured to drag it from its hiding place at least 50 or 60 feet, across drains and up steps and then through a fairly small opening and was now guarding it tooth and nail from a pack of dogs four times her size.  But on the other hand – she sleeps in my bed and her paws and mouth were filthy!!! So I did what any sensible dog owner would do – when it was time to sleep I put her on my husband’s side of the bed!