My life as a content, young, golden retriever, changed drastically almost overnight. How does that happen? What happened? How did my routine, my playfulness, my “got it together I know my stuff” simply leave me. Yes, leave, goodbye, gone. What was happening to me? Let me explain.

I started, they said, tweeting or chirping quietly. This within days progressed to whining.
I whined and stood at the window. I whined as I followed Sheshe around. I whined.
On my walks I started intensively focusing on spots in the grass, repeatedly licking the areas. Licking, licking, seeking new licking locations. I started frequently marking everything in site. My urine began to emit an odor. I heard repeatedly that my penis, a.k.a, my ding dong, my sperminator, my thing smelled like skunk stuff, whatever that is. We needed answers and we needed to figure this out. So off we went to the vet, again.
The vet, I love her, gave me the full body examination, after I calmed down. Ears fine, eyes clear, mouth fine, heart fine, lungs fine, anus fine, paws fine, legs fine….all fine. I provided a urine sample. Then came the question that I had heard twice before within a two week period…..”Could there be a bitch in heat in your neighborhood?”
Sheshe said, “Brodie’s trainer and dog behaviorist asked the same question. I suppose it’s possible. There are so many dogs in our community.” Diagnosis then delivered.

My vet, that I love, said “Brodie is probably hormonal.” We’ll test his urine and let you know tomorrow the results. It’s probably negative. Your boy is just simply a “young mess” right now. They then discussed in front of me setting up an appointment the following week for my neuter, my snip-snip, if my urine was fine.

I am scheduled for my neuter next week and I must say I want it, I need it. I am one miserable golden. I want my routine back. I want my mind back. I need to calm down and chill out. I am so lucky to have such great people in my life making good decisions for me.

We dogs depend on our humans. We put our lives in their hands and we trust. We are forever grateful.

Go to: http://www.pets4homes.co.uk/pet-advice/how-a-bitch-in-heat-affects-the-behaviour-of-male-dogs.html to read more about how far the smell of a female dog in heat can travel and the possible progression of diminished behavior on the part of intact male dogs that experience this phenomenon.