The Tales of Lilly, The Mud Life Dog
No Puppies Please
by Karen Lee Turner
There are so many dogs in Britain, too many in fact, and rescue centres are bursting at the seams, which has been exacerbated by people surrendering dogs they got during lockdown, but can't cope with now they are heading back to working away from home. When we got Lilly she was reproductively intact, and having owned neutered pets in the past, this was a new experience. We enquired about spaying soon after, as we knew we didn't want to add to the over-population, and were told that they would only do it three months after her season.
She came into season 2 weeks after we got her, and it didn't seem to affect her or us that much, but after a rather scary event when she decided to do a Houdini-style escape, and went for a10 minute walkabout in the park, I was rather concerned that she may have had a romantic encounter, and that puppies would ensue. Damian kept telling me she wasn't gone long enough, but everytime I walked her I kept mentally noting how many dogs weren't on leads in the park, and how easy it would be for her to get knocked up. After reading about her breed having large litters, and the fact that a couple of her nipples started to look a bit fuller, my anxiety levels started rising. We had only had Lilly a month or so, and were just about coping with the upheaval she'd made in our lives, how the hell would we cope with 8-10 puppies as well] I found out information on the length of her breed's pregnancy, noted the date of her escape and kept a look out for nesting behaviours and tell-tale signs of pregnancy. Apart from those two nipples nothing else was materialising in the timeline that the websites were stating, so I started to relax a bit, but never really did until a week after she would have given birth. Phew, no puppies!
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THE MUD LIFE MAGAZINE
