Seriously?

Somehow in the midst of the summer o'crazy that involved renewing adoption paperwork, usual chaos of life with 3 kids plus a puppy, an 8 day vacation with my side of the family, and then a 10 day Ethiopia trip that we had only 2 weeks notice to plan, we didn't get around to making the appointment for our puppy to be spayed.

Finally this past week with all the kids back in school, I was able to complete a couple thoughts, make a phone call even! And one of the calls was to the vet to ask them at what age we should get our puppy spayed (the puppy had her last round of puppy vaccinations while she was staying for boarding one time so I haven't talked the the vet in a while), they said, "6 months", hmmm (math in my head) "She's nearly 9 months old! I guess we're behind schedule." I set up the pre-surgery blood work for the following week and the surgery for a few days after that.

So, what do you think happened on Saturday? Two days after the phone call, four days before the vet appointment.


Seriously?

As if we don't have enough to deal with.

If you'd have asked me prior to this at what age dogs would come in heat I'd have said 12 months, maybe even 18 months. I had no idea the average is 6 to 9 months old! Further proof that my biomedical science degree has paid off!

The Internet also had to educate me about just how long this lovely condition will last, you know it averages 3 to 5 days in humans, so what is it a couple days less, a couple more?

21 days!

What?!!!! No way! You mean to tell me that we've finally achieved a state in life where my children no longer wear diapers (not counting the pull-up at night for my little guy), but I'll be diapering the dog for the next 3 weeks?

Awesome!

And apparently it gets better, according to many websites, by the second week we can expect all the male dogs in the neighborhood to be hanging out on our doorstep!

After the disbelief wore off I just felt like the most incompetent dog owner on the planet. I mean who forgets to get their dog spayed?

Then my husband had the beautiful idea that, "Hey, since we didn't get her spayed, she's too young this time, but next time we should breed her, we could make money selling the puppies!"

So, we, he and I, the dog owners who could not even manage to get the puppy spayed in time, are now considering breeding, caring for a pregnant dog, birthing puppies, and then caring for the puppies for 8 weeks some time next spring/early summer (I did also learn this whole in heat thing happens every 6 months or so). Along with our 4 children?

Seriously!

As a bonus, this little situation with our dog has opened up all manner of reproduction conversations with our three children. If your preschooler happens to be in the same class with my preschooler, my apologies in advance!