Bringing Home Lucy the Weimaraner

My 3 year old weimaraner Lucy is completely nuts. So when I knew I had to keep Tony the German Shepherd Dog confined for 42 days straight because of heartworm treatment, I thought getting a vacation from Lucy was a good idea for all of us. So off Lucy went to my mom's house for a little vacation and an extended visit with my mom's German Shepherd, Smokey.

Well now that Tony is over his heartworm, Lucy has returned. Bringing Lucy home has drummed up some old issues. For one, I have 3 female dogs and 2 male dogs. Once, a long time before I had 5 dogs, I asked a vet which is better: multiple male dogs or multiple female dogs? The vet, perhaps speaking from a point of view best described as naive, insisted that having multiple female dogs was far better.

Whoa could anything be further from the truth. Just like a caddy of women at the office, having multiple female dogs is a serious problem. Here is my take on it. You get multiple male dogs, and yes they are going to fight. Once. That's it. One time, end of story. They sort out who's in charge, then after that everything runs smoothly.

Not so with the um...bitches! Female dogs are constantly jockying for position. Like I said, its just like having an office with nothing but women. Two female dogs, well that seems to work out OK. But three represents some kind of tipping point.

A funny observation: over the past 8 weeks while Tony was undergoing his treatment, my female Akita Naomi has been skimping on her food. Not eating at all sometimes. Hell this is a good thing because Naomi is a bit overweight despite walks in the mountains. But since Lucy came back-all of the suddent Naomi's got to eat every last crumb.

Unfortunately for my German Shepherd Dog Brandy, who is a real sweetee-she is at the bottom of the female heirarchy. Brandy is basically a real gentle dog, but for some reason she likes taking her stress out on the males. She used to bark like crazy and do lots of fake attacks on Sam the German Shepherd. Now she takes her anger out on Jake and Tony. But for some reason, when it comes to the girls Brandy is real passive. She won't fight back at all when Naomi and Lucy pick on her, and even seems afraid to get a drink of water (Naomi and Lucy growl and bark near the water bowl, despite my objections). Since Lucy has been back home Brandy's been spending lots of time hiding.

Well things will work themselves out, they always have. But that vet was seriously mistaken. My male dogs have always gotten along great but female dogs never seem to sort it out. It always seems to be contant battling and bickering amongst female dogs to see who is on top and who is in the middle. They don't seem to sort things out all in one go the way male dogs do.

Well what is your experience? If you've had large numbers of dogs I'd like to hear how they sorted out their heirarchy.

Dog Ownership Guilt

Call me neurotic, but it always feels like I never do enough for my dogs. I'm constantly worried about them and get plagued by guilt when I don't have time to go for a walk or play ball. Sometimes the realities of life just intervene and there isn't enough time for my dogs, and I end up feeling guilty about it.

This past weekend was a case in point. One problem is I also own 3 horses. For the most part, I only get to see them on the weekends and sometimes on Saturdays I'm out at the horse ranch all day long, and that happened this Saturday. Then I had a social commitment Saturday evening, so didn't see my dogs until it was already very late. By that time I was tired and ready for bed. So I pretty much just fed them their dinner when I got home and then went off to sleep.

Sunday was no different. I had promised myself to spend more time with them and take the dogs for a walk, but I wasn't able to get around to it. I went out to see the horses again, and then had to go with a friend to a family gathering. I was gone most of the day. I stopped by in the mid-afternoon to check on my dog Tony who has heartworm, and when I was leaving my dog Jake was trying to get me to play ball with him. He looked really sad as I walked out the door, leaving me feeling overwhelmed with guilt again. I felt so guilty that even though I got home at 9:30 PM (hey thats late for a work night) I took Jake for a half hour walk.

I am wondering if other dog owners get these feelings of guilt when they can't walk their dogs or spend time playing with them.

Dogs Detecting Illness

I have to admit I get nervous every time my dogs sniff at my right knee. The reason? I keep hearing that dogs are really good at detecting cancer or other illnesses by sniffing. After all, they have a sense of smell reported to be 10,000 times or maybe its 100,000 times more sensitive than a humans. So why wouldn't they be able to smell tumors? Or blood clots?

Well my dogs keep sniffing at my right knee so there must be something wrong. Anyway, Pamela Plante lived out my worst nightmare when her little dog kept sniffing at her leg and Pamela discovered she had sepsis! When I read this, I kept thinking, hey maybe my weimaraner does know I have a blood clot in my right knee!

Originally used to detect skin cancers, apparently dogs can sense breast and lung cancer as well. Dogs are even able to detect when blood sugar levels drop in diabetics. So if your dog starts sniffing a particular area of the body, if you haven't spilled peanut butter take a trip to the doctor!