Poor Puppy

Monday marked Blitz's 6-month birthday, and to celebrate, we sent him to the vet to have his nails trimmed -- while he was being castrated.  He came through his surgery with flying colours, but to keep his recovery at optimum levels, the vet sent Blitz home wearing an Elizabethan collar.  I couldn't get the dog to walk across the parking lot as he was too busy trying to bite that horrible contraption off.  At home, he would just sit forlornly, hunched over and sad.  He wouldn't eat, he wouldn't drink, he wouldn't even go to the bathroom (after bashing into the doorframe just trying to get out).  So we gave in to his patheticness and took the blasted e-collar off, loving him and watching for the dreaded sack licking.  He was a good dog, and learned quickly to stay away or risk imprisonment.  Next our difficult task was to follow doctor's orders and keep him from being too active -- no running, no jumping.  This was harder to do, and finally we just gave up when Ariel came home from work and the dog leapt over the couch to get to him (Blitz loves Ariel obsessively).  So far, he's healing well regardless.

The lead-up to this momentous day inspired much conversation in our house.  The girls are at that age where we're starting to have "the talk."  Lena has had the full-disclosure talk in preparation for school while Livia has had the truncated Animal Planet version.  So L&L knew what testicles were and knew that this surgery would eliminate any chance of Blitz being a Papa Dog, but they were perplexed.  Lena asked, "But Daddy isn't going to have any more children.  Will he have his testicles removed?"  I had to explain (through fits of giggles) about hormones and how mostly, we just don't want Blitz to have a lot of bad boy-dog behaviours, like wanting to be the alpha-dog, humping, and being interested in the ladies -- many of the same behaviours that I would like their Daddy to keep.