Heart Like a Dog

The Good, the Bad, and the Oh My God of living with dogs!

Pet Blogger Showcase – July 1, 2017

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Would you believe, I almost forgot about this hop?

True story, I was just settling in for some, “Hollywood Medium” when I realized, Oh shit, I need to write a PBS for tomorrow! So I jumped right on the computer, and managed to get it done. Half a jar of Almond Butter later…here it is.

Buckle up, here we go.

Snoozy boy, photo courtesy of Wag ‘N Woof Pets.

Thankful Thursday – Getting That Happy Back by Jan at Wag ‘N Woof Pets. – As anyone who has a fearful dog knows, no matter how hard we try, sometimes things just don’t go as planned. Getting Luke to the vet took some maneuvering, on Jan and her husband, but they managed to get it done. 

Dapper Kitty – photo courtesy of 15 And Meowing

Happy Father’s Day by Ellen Pilch at 15 And Meowing – Squeee…..it’s a cat….in a hat, and she’s making MORE hats…for cats! The hats are for a new cat club, for older female cats. If your cat is over 15, head on over and join the club, and you can get a hat….for your cat!

It’s another cat, but no hat, just …just …a hole?

Saturday: The Hole by Lorian at DogDaz – Did you ever catch your cat or dog, just staring blankly out into space? Some people say it’s because the animal is seeing ghosts. But our friends over at DogDaz, call it something else. 🙂

That’s it for this week’s showcase, join us in 2 weeks for the next one.

Welcome to the Pet Blogger Showcase! This is the place for you to show off your favorite family friendly pet related posts, find other great posts to read, show some love to other bloggers and maybe be featured on one of the host blogs!

Meet the Hosts Behind the Showcase

Pet Faves– Living the pet lover lifestyle

Heart Like A Dog– The good, the bad, and the Oh My God of living with dogs

Felines Opines– The world from a feline point of view

Momma Kat and Her Bear Cat– The humorous and touching tales of a formerly homeless, yet always extraordinary, feline and his Momma, who’s just along for the ride.

About the Pet Blogger Showcase

Twice a month, On the 1st and 3rd Saturday of the month, you have the chance to link up one of your blog posts to the linky party link-up. Then visit 3 other blogs that joined the party and leave a meaningful comment. Feel free to share with your followers on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, etc. Then each week the hosts will feature their favorite 3 posts from the previous Linky Party on the new party post.

Pet Blogger Showcase Rules

  1. Share a pet specific post, past or present, from your blog in the linky below (be sure to link to your post page and not your home page). Family friendly posts only. (We love reading about other topics and niches, but posts that are not pet related will be deleted this includes any posts that don’t mention pets even if they are on a pet blog or if the post could pertain to pets.)
  2. Spread the Love! Leave a quality comment(more than just a few words) on at least 3 other posts from the linky party. Tell them why you love their post, encourage them, share on social media.
  3. Check back for the next linky party to see if you are featured on one of the hosts’ blogs.

*Note: By adding your post to the linky party you are giving the hosts permission to use an image from your post if your post will be a featured post on their blog to help encourage people to click through to your post. The image may be used individually or as a collage.

That’s it! No need to RSVP. No need to bring a covered dish. No need to add the linky to your post. No need to include a button. Just come join the party and PAWTY ON!



Hope For Paws

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Week Seven in Kathleen Gage’s Community Challenge Post.

When you write a blog about pets, when you love animals, there’s bound to be a time when an animal in need comes your way.  I see so many animals that have been abused and neglected, and I try to help when I can because they all touch my heart.

And I applaud those folks who work in rescue. They are out there everyday seeing the worst of humanity, I mean some of the cases they see are truly horrific.

Every once in a while, you get the opportunity to meet someone who is really making a difference. Someone who talks the talk, and walks the walk. That happened to me at BlogPaws.

For a while now, I’ve been following Hope for Paws, a Los Angles, California based rescue, founded by Eldad and Audrey Hagar.

Hope for Paws records their rescues, and shares them on their YouTube channel, and Facebook page.

Honestly, some of these rescues are truly amazing.

Like the one where Eldad actually crawled 18 feet into a crevice, with a rope attached to his feet, in order to rescue a litter of nine puppies.

It’s a bit hard to watch at times, as the puppies are obviously scared, and stressed, but to leave them there would only lead to certain death. (FYI, it’s close to fifteen minutes long, so watch it after you read the post.) 🙂

For a while now, Eldad and his rescue have been on my radar. I mean, they’re on my wish list of people/organizations I want to donate to and support.  If you watch some of their earlier rescues, you’ll note that you typically don’t see Eldad in the videos. So when Chloe announced that Eldad was in the audience at BlogPaws, I had no idea what he looked like, but I knew I just had to meet this man who saves so many animals.

I also knew I would probably cry, because truthfully, I usually cry when watching the videos, just because I’m so amazed at how dedicated he is to helping these abandoned babies and seeing the transformation of these precious beings, just touches my heart.

At the conference we would get to see some of these amazing rescue videos during breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Apparently Eldad has been at every BlogPaws but one, and I never knew.  His goal is to work with bloggers in spreading the word about Hope For Paws. Due to the way Facebook continues to change their Algorithms, Hope for Paws has over a million fans, but only a very small percentage actually see the videos.

Truth. I stalked him. Everytime they showed a video, I’d look to see where he was so I could meet him, but he was ALWAYS surrounded by people!

Finally, Friday afternoon, I saw my opportunity and I took it.

I’m not gonna lie, I fan-girled all over him. I got very emotional and he was surprised that there were so many tears at BlogPaws. But I told him they were happy tears, and I thanked him for all the work he did to help rescue these precious beings.

I also told him, when I win the lottery, he’s on my list for a million dollars.

I got to hug him, and then I asked to have my picture taken.

Eldad Hagar, Hope for Paws

Shut up! That’s me with Eldad Hagar!! Seriously.

How can you help Eldad and Hope for Paws? Subscribe to their YouTube channel, and their Facebook page, and share the videos. Oh, and if you want to give up a coffee, any amount helps. 🙂

My Dog Has Morning ‘Wood’; What Your Neutered Dog’s Erection Might Mean

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So… back in December, Sampson had…um…a little ‘incident’.

I really wish she wouldn’t write about this.

I noticed when I got up in the morning that Sampson was licking himself. I mean, going to town, licking himself.

It was dark, and I was preoccupied getting ready for our walk, so I told him to “leave it” and went about my business.

After I had my pre-walk chores done, I grabbed Sampson’s harness and when I approached him, I noticed he was once again licking himself. I turned on the light to see what had his attention.

Can a neutered dog have an erection?

Speaking of attention…his little ‘soldier’ was at attention, and as I turned on the light, a drop of blood fell from the tip of his penis onto the floor.

“Oh my God!” I exclaimed to Hubby, “He’s bleeding from his penis!”

I called the emergency vet and explained the situation.She asked me a couple of questions, and as I was answering them, I noticed that the area in question appeared to be very red and….hem, hem,… bigger than normal.

Well you know how I roll, SO…

I reached down and gave it a gentle squeeze.

I was startled to discover, it was quite hard.

I mentioned this to the young woman on the phone, and asked what I should do. To her credit, she didn’t laugh, or give me any lewd suggestions.

Now, I don’t mean to be indelicate here, and I don’t mean to blow my own horn, but if the situation included a male person, I’d definitely have ideas on how to handle it.

But this is my dog, and I’m not going there, because that’s just gross. (And if you came here for that, this post isn’t for you, so please move along).

The vet’s office mentioned I could give it a few minutes and see if it went away, or I could try icing it.

I’m just going to let you picture that for a minute. Me, sitting in the dark crying, while holding a bag of peas to my dog’s bleeding penis.

As luck would have it, I didn’t have any peas.

So, I told the girl I’d much rather bring him in and could be there in less than 20 minutes.

I hung up and said to Hubby, “I’m going to get the car ready!”

At which point, Sampson jumped up ready for his walk.

I took a breath then, (well, if he can jump and walk, it can’t be THAT uncomfortable, am I right?) Let’s see how he pees…it’s only hearsay to me, but from what I understand, peeing in that condition isn’t very easy.

So I said to Hubby, “Let me try a walk and see if I can get a urine sample.” I grabbed my urine collecting tools and out the door we went.

Because no-one should start the morning with dog pee on them.

Sampson didn’t seem to have any issues walking, nor did he struggle to urinate, or pee more than he usually does on a walk.

I called the emergency vet back, and told her I felt like we could wait the hour until I could reach my own vet. (My vet’s office has a vet who checks phone calls beginning at 7:00, even though they don’t open until 8:30).

When I spoke to my vet, she said someone should definitely look at him. When I asked her about the stiffy he was sporting, she suggested he may have found the licking…enjoyable.

I hung up the phone and said, “Great, my dog has morning wood.”

Sigh.

I have to say it, you know I do.

“Why does a dog lick himself?” and the answer is, “Because he can.”

If I keep my eyes closed, I can pretend this never happened.

When the vet’s office opened, I scheduled an appointment and brought him in.  While they ran the urine sample, Dr. Dupre gave him a physical exam and then she performed a Prostate exam.

To say this wasn’t well received is an understatement. I almost had to lay on Sampson to keep him still. If his eyes could have spun in his head, they would have.

Dr. Dupre couldn’t feel anything abnormal during the exam, so we did an x-ray.

The x-ray showed Sampson had a bit of stool in his system, so the Prostate wasn’t fully visible but there was nothing alarming. There was a slight shadow under his spine that could have been a lymph node, but again, nothing alarming.

After all of this, it was determined that Sampson had injured his prepuce (the skin sheath that covers the penis when it’s not peeping out) and with whatever licking he had done, he’d gotten an infection.

I had to think about it to figure out HOW he injured himself, but then I remembered the week before he’d seen his friend Mrs. Whinnem at her front door, and he was so excited, he tried to climb her steps, but they were steep and his back legs let go and he slid a bit on the cement. That had to have been when it happened.

We went home with some ointment that had to be squeezed into the prepuce and some antibiotics.

Ointment that had to be squeezed into his penis. Twice a day. I was afraid he’d start getting ideas…

As we were leaving, Dr. Allen was coming back from lunch. She stopped to say hello, and I told her what was going on, so while I was getting Sampson’s ramp ready, Dr. Allen was observing Sampson. She watched him pee, and then she took a quick look at his junk when he got into the car. Basically, we had two exams. 🙂 Dr. Allen agreed with Dr. Dupre’s assessment.

So we had an answer for the blood, but no idea why he was having an erection.

Conversations with my vet were…interesting, and I will admit, we did get a few good jokes about it, especially as she was asking around on forums only available to veterinarians.

What reasons are there for a neutered dog to have an erection?

There were a few theories about what could have caused the chubby, (besides the enjoyable bit).

One theory was that little nodule on his adrenal gland, (that we discovered in February of last year), had begun secreting some type of hormones.

The second theory was sex glands. Apparently there are two sets of sex glands in male dogs. The testicles (which most vets remove when neutering), and there are another set at the base of the penis shaft.  Sometimes when Sampson is super happy, that second set pops up like two little marbles. And then I always ask him if he’s happy to see me. 🙂

A third theory, which is the one we all seem to be leaning towards, at least with Sampson is, when he really has to urinate, he gets an erection, because yes, it has also happened in the afternoons, and it continued to happen after the infection was cleared up.  Each time, I would take a urine sample in, and with the exception of once, he didn’t have a UTI.

The final theory of course, is the Urinary tract infection, which Sampson initially had.  But once it was cleared up, the erections continued.

I think a lot of Sampson’s issues could have been when he scraped his penis, as the further we’ve gotten away from December, the less frequently these erections occur. But you can bet your boots if he’s really paying attention to that area, I’m going to watch it, and possibly get a urine sample.

Author’s note: I tried bringing some humor to a somewhat delicate topic, I can find the humor after the situation, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t and I don’t take this seriously, because I do.

DISCLAIMER: I am not a veterinarian, I do not play one on TV, and I did not stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night. If your dog is having an erection, has frequent urination, or struggles to urinate, please take him to your veterinarian. The conclusion we came to with Sampson is based on conversations and testing with a licensed veterinarian and is in no way intended to be a diagnosis for your dog. Please DO NOT SELF DIAGNOSE your dog.
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