Lessons Learned

This past Friday just before our last local varsity football game, we discovered our dog Sandy was missing from our yard.  She had not been put back on her chain after being played with earlier in the day and had wandered off to parts unknown. She is usually a very friendly girl and likes to socialize with the female chocolate lab that lives behind us and tends to stay near the house. But this time she was nowhere to be found and the kids were distraught. What I feared and later discovered was that she was in heat and had indeed found herself a dark, handsome boyfriend named Hershey that lives down the road. If we had to chose a mate for her, we couldn't have chosen any better considering Hershey is also a chocolate lab and Sandy is a lab mix that looks like a small yellow lab. So, if there are any puppies eventually, they should be cute. However, as I spoke with my neighbor friday night trying to find out if anyone had seen our beloved family member, I was not careful enough with what I said. While I tried to avoid mentioning the possibility that she could have been hurt or worse, we discussed at length the fact that she might have been in heat. So lesson learned #1- if you haven't talked with your kids about the birds and the bees yet, explaining dogs in heat is not much easier and that of course was the first question asked as we pulled away to drive around the neighborhood.  Luckily I was able to talk in circles and confuse my children to the point they had no idea what I was talking about. Perhaps I should have used this as a learning opportunity, but it just wasn't the time. We were blessed to have a neighbor that heard the dogs at 4 am and got up to bring her back to our yard and secure her once again. Lesson #2- get your yard secured (electric fence in our case because nothing else will keep her in) BEFORE your female dog goes into heat.  We'll keep everyone posted on whether a crisis pregnancy has indeed occurred!