It's a Dog's Life

We have a pack of dogs living at our place. One female schnauzer, one male pharaoh hound and two female pharaoh hounds. None of the dogs have been desexed, but none of them are going to be used (again) for breeding.

I say (again) because the schnauzer and the older pharaoh hound have both been mothers. If a thousand dollars or so fell into my bank account I'd certainly take the two oldest girls off the the vet to have there breeding ability fixed for good. This hasn't happened, so we'll have to continue on as we are.

Having undesexed bitches in the house with a male dog has some issues that must be dealt with. When a bitch is in season, it's messy. It's hard on the male dog, and it plays havoc with the hierarchy of the pack. We find it works best to keep the girl in season safely confined, and the male dog kept where he won't be too distracted.

It's funny sometimes to watch our pharaoh hound boy pining for the schnauzer, but it's not so funny when the bitches decide to try to sort out the hierarchy with a fight. If the girls have been fine together, we can let the three loose together in the house. If one's in season though, it's not work the risk.

The pharaoh hounds are mother and two of her kids. The boy's from her first litter and the girl's from her second litter. The pharaoh girls are always OK together, and the boy's always OK with the other two pharaoh hounds, unless the girls are in season. As you can imagine, it gets a little bit tricky around our house sometimes.

When one of the girls are in season and are around the time they're ready to be mated, the boy pharaoh goes completely off his food. The pharaoh hound isn't the kind of the dog that tends to be fat anyway, so it's a little bit of a worry for us, having him not eating. Once the girl's 'safe' again, his appetite comes back, fortunately.

Living with more that one dog in your house is extremely interesting, watching how they work things out. It can end up with a trip to the vet though, if we get it wrong. It's possible to let the dogs go, to sort it out themselves, but sometimes it's easier and less painful if the humans take charge.

When a person brings dogs into their life, it becomes their responsibility to look after the dogs as best they can. So, if you want dogs, you have to be the boss, the chef and the mediator. Are you up to it? I hope so, for your sake and for the sake of your dogs.

Christmas with Dogs

Actually, our dogs pretty well missed out on Christmas. My husband, son and I went out yesterday, which was Christmas Day, and again today. We didn't give our four dogs anything special for Christmas and they certainly don't know enough to feel they've missed out on anything.

Of course, dogs have no idea about the Christian tradition, and they certainly don't shop. Our dogs did get fed, let out and let back in again as possible. They were all locked away when we went out, Lah Dee, our male Pharaoh Hound was shut in our bedroom, Nena, our female schnauzer was locked in a crate, and Ananka and Missy, our two female Pharaoh Hounds were locked in another crate.

I'd love it if we could leave all of our dogs loose together in the house, with easy access to the yard. Sadly, that isn't possible for us. Lah Dee digs holes in the back yard, and when he was put in the dog run this morning he began barking non-stop. He was not a happy puppy, so he came back inside.

We can't have Nena loose with either of the other two girls, because they're currently enemies. I hope they may one day become friends again, but they're certainly nowhere near that time yet.

We could have left Ananaka and Missy together in the back yard. These two are mother and daughter, and they are friends. Ananka has a higher position in our pack, and Missy is perfectly happy with that.

To add a further bit of interest to our pack situation, Missy is in an interesting condition, to put it delicately. She's been in season for over a fortnight, and judging by the way Lah Dee's acting, she's probably ovulated now. Lah Dee's been pining for her, and not eating much of his dinner, for the past couple of days.

Once Missy's back to normal, then the three Pharaoh Hounds will be able to be loose together in the house, and perhaps with Nena too. The dogs all act better together inside than outside. I'm glad about this, but we still have to keep watch on them. These creatures are dogs, and they have their own pack rules. If the people in the house get involved, then it won't be a good thing. So we keep them where they can all be happy and not have to fight to work out the hierarchy. 

This of course has nothing much to do with Christmas. We offer our dogs love and goodwill though, and that certainly is a Christmas thing. I hope you've had a Merry Christmas!

What has that !*%$!! Dog Done Now?!

Oh where do I start? Hmm. Ananka has become Queen Nasty Bitch, after briefly being Queen Nice, when she decided it was OK for Nena, our schnauzer girl to be loose inside the house without having to say nasty things or trying to kill her. I guess we knew it was too good to be true, that we could live in peace and harmony with four dogs loose inside.

No, they didn't fight, but Ananka did something worse than that - she bit someone on the ankle. I guess she thought she was doing a good job protecting our property, but even so, it's not on. She has lost the right to be loose when visitors are present. The other two pharaoh hounds, La De and Missy are still behaving though, so that's good.

But once things were sorted out, the two pharaoh girls both come in season, so La De has to pee on everything outside, many times a day. He hasn't gone off his food yet, but I know that is going to happen when the girls are at about ovulating stage. Males are so predictable! There's always something going on with the dogs to make life a little bit more complicated!

What else? Oh yeah, Ananka discovered a way of getting out of the back run and into the pool area. The pool area has a slight (pharaoh hound sized) hole in the fence. So we can't leave Missy or Ananka loose in the dog run anymore. I've looked at the fence and I can't see where she would have got through, I just know that she did get through!

When the pharaoh girls are left down the dog run now, they'll have to be kennelled. Oh well, at least we have the kennels. And it's too hot at the moment anyway, so they get locked up inside, with the cooler going. Luxury!

That's enough of my ranting, I just needed to get it all off my chest. I love having dogs, but sometimes ...

They're not called Bitches for Nothing

I've got a sneaking suspicion one of our girl dogs is coming into season. I think the girl dog is Nena. This is not a good thing.

Nena is our middle-aged schnauzer and we have more or less decided we are not going to be breeding any more schnauzers again. Ever. This was a decision I more or less made on my own, but I think (hope) my husband Graham agrees.

We are Pharaoh Hound people now, far more than we are Schnauzer people. Although, based on our showing, you could say we are just pet people. We have barely shown our dogs since the Adelaide Royal Show 2008, and when I realised I had missed the closing date for the Royal Show entries for this year I laughed and shrugged.

I guess you could say we are not that committed to showing our dogs at the moment. That doesn't mean we'll never show again, it just means we are more into our other things in life at the moment. We still have two schnauzers and a bunch of pharaohs, but they seem to have decided being couch potatoes is more fun at the moment too.

Ever since we decided the old sofa was for the dogs and our teenaged son, the pharaoh hounds have barely gone outside. They so love a comfortable life. They still run at speed, they just don't do it so often or for as long. Inside the house, on the sofa is so much nicer. It's winter in Australia, and it is very cold out there!

Anyway, back to our bitches. I caught Ananka (PH) staring at Nena and growling half an hour ago. I didn't see what Nena was doing in return, but I am very glad one was in the crate and the other loose inside the room. If they were looose together there would be a fight for sure. I don't like dog fights, so Nena and Ananka are never loose together. They both think they are top bitch. They usually don't bother looking at each other through the crate, but Ananka seems to be trying to assert her authority.

The joys of living with multiple dogs! If I was the dog whisperer, I could probably get them sorted out, but I'm not, so I just thank whoever it was that invented dog crates. I am a firm believer in dog crates. They are so useful in so many situations.