The Joys of Being a Boy

Hmmmmm.....well, it's been an interesting 24 hours around here. Starting last night, after Adam and I got back from dinner, we opened the door to blood droplets on the stairs. Which then led to more blood in the hallway and our bedroom. At first, when we saw the blood in our bedroom and the fact that the dogs weren't obviously hurt, we had a bad feeling that there had been an altercation between Heffner and one of the cats (I really do need to get around to posting about the dynamics that our cats bring into this household). She likes to hide under our bed and taunt him. And he usually always falls for it. So we went running around the house to find the two cats and make sure they were fine. They were both totally fine without a scratch on them. That was a relief.

Now it was time to look over the dogs. We checked their feet, including their pads. We checked inside the mouth, paying close attention to those pendulous lips. And we checked in their ears, since those can be real bleeders. Nothing. This was very confounding. We had four animals who were all seemingly whole, but a whole lot of blood on the carpet. We decided to just start trying to clean up the blood and worry about it in a bit.

When we finally gave up for the night, I pulled out the dremmel because it was Thursday night and that's nail night and I'm OCD about hitting those nails every week. Heffner knows what it means when I bring string cheese up to the bathroom. He immediately got himself into position while I hunted down the batter for the dremmel off the charger. As Heffner was laying there, Adam came down the hallway and started loving on Heffner. Suddenly he tells me that Heffner has dried blood on his belly. And in his groin. And the whole general penis area. Fabulous! The nearest we can figure, even though Bess is out of season and has been for a short bit now, he maybe tried to mount her and something happened to cause him to get blood on him. I checked Bess out, but she had no blood in or around her vulva and she certainly wasn't flagging her tail. Then I went on to Heffner. He was definitely still bleeding. It was hard to tell if the bleeding was coming from the penis itself or the prepuce, but he was bleeding. I dabbed it up and figured that it would just seal itself off and that would be that. We got through doing nails with no further incident, and we really thought that it was all over. Guess again!

We woke up this morning to more blood on the carpet. While he was getting up to come and wait for me by our bedroom door like he does every morning, he must have reopened whatever was causing the bleeding. I palpated the area and he wasn't tender, he wasn't swollen, it wasn't red; it was just bleeding. I called our vet's and left a message on their answering describing what was going on and for them to call me back. I didn't feel it was an emergency because he wasn't otherwise acting off at all. He was just bleeding from an area that he shouldn't have been bleeding from (IS there an area that a male dog should be bleeding from???). They got back to me pretty quick and got further details from me over the phone. We set up an appointment for 4:30pm (all that they had available) and were going to run it by the vet. If she thought it was urgent then they would call me back.

4:30pm rolls around and we're at the vet's. By this time, the whole prepuce area is swollen and red. The discharge has changed from just blood, to a puss like substance with some blood mixed in. I was really worried at this point. Heffner was also acting a bit more lethargic and out of sorts. The vet gave him a thorough going over. She wasn't entirely sure that it was a mounting related injury. Maybe he tried, but something else happened. She was also having a hard time determining if the discharge was coming from the penis itself or the prepuce. It looked like it was coming from the penis. She also checked his prostate just in case. They collected a fresh urine sample from him and we'll get the results back tomorrow. Until then, we really don't know what is wrong with his manly parts. He's on antibiotics, anti inflammatories, and a little bit of pain meds to help him out. Even after the first round of meds, it's clear that he uncomfortable and I feel awful for him. I just have no clue what the heck happened! Both dogs have been loose together in the house all week. Then we step out for dinner and come back to a blood bath. A blood bath that I'm going to need to rent a steam cleaner to fully get out of the carpet. Adam and I have agreed that the purchase of our own steam cleaner is imminent!

So that's been my excitement since last night! Hopefully Heffy will heal up quick. I just feel awful for him!

And now I'm off to bathe Bess. We've got a dog show in Centralia, WA this weekend. And in addition to showing in conformation, Bess is making her rally novice debut!! Tomorrow will be especially interesting because the ring time for danes in conformation is REALLY close to that of our novice ring time in rally. I'm really hoping that we can squeeze in our rally run before we have to go in for conformation! Anyhow, wish us all luck on all accounts!!