{"id":2616,"date":"2016-07-08T00:22:32","date_gmt":"2016-07-07T12:22:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/?p=2616"},"modified":"2016-07-08T07:54:56","modified_gmt":"2016-07-07T19:54:56","slug":"no-puppies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/no-puppies\/","title":{"rendered":"No Puppies"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maisie<\/a> was speyed on Monday. That means our chance for surprise puppies is now over, and I’m just a little sad.<\/p>\n

We are\u00a0late getting her ‘fixed’ because Brett the Vet<\/a> thought she would be too young to come into heat last year. Apparently large breeds don’t\u00a0usually mature reproductively until 12-24 months old. Maisie was an early bloomer however, and her\u00a0first\u00a0heat was in\u00a0November when she had\u00a0barely hit nine months.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The day we chose her.<\/p><\/div>\n

We noticed she was\u00a0in season soon after Favorite Stepson reported she’d had a\u00a0‘fight’ with a\u00a0neighbour’s breeding male, an American\u00a0Bulldog. We\u00a0became obsessed with the idea that\u00a0Maisie might be pregnant. I was quite excited by the prospect, but the Forbearing Husband was most definitely not excited<\/em>. ‘No Puppies!’, he proclaimed\u00a0masterfully.<\/p>\n

\"Echo,<\/a>

Echo, Maisie’s mum. Exhausted first time mother\u00a0of eleven puppies.<\/p><\/div>\n

His reasoning? ‘If she has puppies they’ll be so cute I\u00a0won’t be able to bring myself to part with any of them’. See\u00a0why I love this bloke?<\/p>\n

Maisie\u00a0was one of\u00a0eleven pups, so I guess that was part of his worry. When we went to The Horsewoman’s farm to select our puppy the Forbearing Husband refused to make the final choice. He said he wanted all of them. His motto? ‘No puppy left behind’. Perhaps it’s being the youngest of five children. Did he fret constantly as a toddler that\u00a0the older kids would go home and forget him\u00a0in the park?<\/p>\n

Anyway once we established that Maisie\u00a0wasn’t pregnant\u00a0it\u00a0was\u00a0a case of finding an interval in which\u00a0she could\u00a0be speyed. One has to wait 2-3 months after the last heat, and also be sure she isn’t about to start another round. Frankly it had all the complications of trying to plan a cervical\u00a0smear appointment\u00a0during menopause<\/a> (sorry, that’s an in-joke for women aged over 45).<\/p>\n

\"Great<\/a>

Maisie’s dad, Nero. Could he have Great Dane in his family tree?<\/p><\/div>\n

Anyway, mission accomplished. Maisie is now non-fertile. Vet’s orders are that she should have\u00a0rest and a quiet life over\u00a0the next 14 days. Those\u00a0of The Readership who have met Maisie\u00a0will know the\u00a0challenge that poses.<\/p>\n

Perhaps Nurse Jenny could post up a few\u00a0sedatives?<\/p>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Maisie was speyed on Monday. That means our chance for surprise puppies is now over, and I’m just a little sad. We are\u00a0late getting her ‘fixed’ because Brett the Vet thought she would be too young to come into heat… Continue Reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[52,51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-animal-health","category-maisie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2616"}],"version-history":[{"count":63,"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2616\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2698,"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2616\/revisions\/2698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.charmedlife.co.nz\/cowboybootsandbrokenfingers\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}