Birds and Bees and ....Dogs?

Thanks to our dogs, our kids are now completely up to speed on the process of reproduction. Not for us the gradual answering of ever more pointed questions, hopefully drawn out over a couple of years, culminating in a instructive, yet sensitively done, tete-a-tete with said children, perhaps with the aid of some specially written book filled with tasteful illustrations.

Nope, we got the crash course when the girls came racing into the house one day yelling, "Mommy! The dogs butts are stuck together! What are they doing?". Oy.

That was three years ago, and since that time the dogs sex life has much been the topic of conversation at the dinner table. "But why does he keep licking her butt? " is not what passes for polite dining conversation anywhere, I assure them, but it's difficult to keep their attention when the canine version of a Navy shore leave in Tripoli is being acted out in the room next door.

At first, we tried to keep them separated but the instincts of nature are impossible to control. Inevitably, they would manage to hook up, and then spend the next half an hour or so wandering confusedly around in a circle. We have hardwood floors and the frantic clickity-clicking of toenails is extremely irritating, to say the least.

Now we just chuck them outside and let them have at it. The weird thing is, Earnest was spayed as a puppy and up until he met Althea at age 9, had never shown the slightest interest in sex. I can only conclude that she is the Salome of dogdom, her charms irresistible to refuse.

But now we face a different challenge; it seems that their lust has rubbed off on our two Jack Russells, Zeke and Eddie, who have recently taken to tussling each other in a very lascivious fashion. The fact that they are both males doesn't bother them one bit; the love that dare not speak its name has arrived.

I can't wait for dinner.