The Humpty Dance
***Trigger warning for any male with testicles***
My foster dog Prince (as in a “Prince of a guy”) just vomited all over his crate, and if that ain’t the perfect ending to a truly rotten week, I don’t know what is.
I get it: dogs vomit. They just do sometimes, and there’s no real reason for it. One of their design flaws, I guess. But this particular event was just the icing on the cake for this little feller.
Last week I was bursting my buttons with pride at having been asked to join the Board of my favorite Westie rescue; this week I was learning what sacrifice really is when there are no other fosters available, and I get to take one for the team.
Earlier in the week, we had an owner surrender for a male Westie about 10 years old named Prince – let me back up: an UN-NEUTERED, 10yo male named Prince. Yes, the little guy still had his peaches, and if you’ve been around intact dogs, they are about as proud of them as the average male human.
But needs must, and peaches don’t survive long in the rescue system. So off Prince went to the vet, and I waited in excitement to get another foster dog. So far, all the fosters I’ve had have been absolute dreams: Miley, Owen, Baxter, Tess…all wonderful, easy fosters.
Well.
Prince came back from the vet a humpin’ machine. Little dude and the Digital Underground were doing the Humpty Dance together – in three-eight time. And my poor babies Winston and Trixie were square in his sights, not to mention my leg, the sofa and anything else he could find to make love to.
Trixie gave him the business back, because she is a bad-ass, 13-lb bitch. He’d back off her for a moment at most. And poor Winnie has just been molested up one side and down the other this week.
A fellow rescue volunteer recommended sedation – just put that little guy out until he is too tired to hump anything. That worked, but only on a limited basis.
The vet recommended a water squirt bottle, and you’d have thought that would have done the trick. For thousands of years, males have been using the cold shower method, amirite? Not for Prince – it only stymies him for a second, and then he’s back to getting after it. The vet assures me this is a temporary condition while the testosterone leaves and/or is absorbed by his body, so we just have to ride it out. So to speak.
So the only other thing to do has been to separate the dogs, and I’ve been playing musical rooms this week. Shuttling two dogs to one room, letting the other out; switching it up after an hour or so, mixing in trips to the back yard…it’s exhausting.
But Prince is getting adopted tomorrow, guys. PRINCE IS GETTING ADOPTED TOMORROW. I’ll have my house – and my leg – back.
