The birds, the bees, and dogs

Idon’t know what’s going on in the animal world at the moment, but every day we have had calls about ‘‘morning after’’ medication. I guess all the summer puppies and kittens are 6 months now and old enough to reproduce.

So let’s answer some of those questions.

Dogs, unlike cats, come in to ‘‘season’’ every six months. This ‘‘season’’, as it is called, usually lasts about three weeks, although in younger dogs it can go on for four to five weeks.

The first signs are small blood droplets and swelling of the rear end. Then there will be a bus parked outside your house with a raging horde of male dogs inside. Jokes aside, I had one owner tell me how his male dog pulled off the diagonal piece of wood holding the door palings and then bashed his way through the door of the shed to visit the female dog over the road that was in season.

Approximately seven days after the bleeding begins, the female dog will accept the advances of a male. This will last for another seven days of wining and dining, and the following week she will be fed up and send him on his way.

So, most matings will occur in the middle week of the three but remember that some seasons can be prolonged.

The obvious preventative action is to spey your female dog and, let’s be fair, neuter the boys as well. There are definite medical advantages to early speying, which includes the elimination of the chance of breast tumours in dogs if they are speyed early in life.

But what do you do when you look out the kitchen window and there is a visitor with your female dog.

Some people call me (usually on a Sunday afternoon) to tell me, but there isn’t anything I or you can do. The bucket of water doesn’t work because they are physically tied, and time is the only solution for the tissues to shrink and unlock them.

So what do you do once you have chased the male dog off the property with a few adjectives following?

I guess if you don’t mind her having puppies then it’s a wait-and-see in seven weeks’ time (pregnancy lasts 63 days) or if you want to know earlier, we can ultrasound her in 28 days. There is always a chance that she isn’t pregnant.

But if you don’t want more little paws, your choices depend on whether you want to breed from her or not:

No? Good choice because that’s what breeders do and there are lots of puppies around already.

Then call us and arrange to have her speyed in two weeks’ time. We avoid speying dogs when they are in season for several reasons but two weeks after mating season is fine. Nowadays, we also avoid speying adult dogs due to the hugely increased surgical risk and reduced benefits once they reach breeding age. All the more reasons to spey prior to 6 months of age.

Yes, you do want puppies later (but not with that dog out there!)?

Then we need to give her two mismating injections 24 hours apart. The emergency contraceptive injection.

There is a relatively new drug available for mismating. Earlier (and I must say cheaper – but you get what you pay for, as always) drugs have some very nasty side-effects, including bone marrow suppression and infected uteruses which result in you having to spey her anyway to treat this side-effect. No drug is 100 per cent guaranteed and even with this new drug, the guidelines recommend ultra-sounding the female at 28 days to make sure it has worked.

So ultimately, avoiding the whole ordeal by calling us at the hospital is a better option if you don’t want to breed from your four-legged friend.

For the soft footed felines: The No 1 question has been about that sparsely haired area just in front of their ears. This is actually normal and is where their scent glands are located which they use when they smooch up to you with their motor going. The other area for scent glands is their feet which they use to mark their territory when they scratch. So it’s not just them sharpening their claws but they are leaving a scent there as well.

Anderson’s Veterinary Hospitals, Palmerston North, phone 357 9993 for Pitama Rd or 356 9993 for Hokowhitu, open till 7pm Monday to Friday and open Saturday and Sunday.