The heat is on

On Saturday Suki went into heat. I've never had a female dog before so this is a novel experience for me. She was just fine Saturday morning, but we noticed the bleeding in the early afternoon and by late afternoon we definitely noticed a personality change.

My sister and her husband were visiting with their 2 female dogs and Suki, after playing happily with them the day before, suddenly went ballistic and started a dog fight when she thought one of them might be moving in on her rawhide treat. The result was a bloody finger for me and a time out in her crate for Suki. That was the worst of it though. She settled down after all the rawhides were put away and after that she has only been a little snippy.

We are keeping her on leash in the back yard during bathroom breaks and her daily trip to the off-leash park with us has been put on hold until further notice. I felt so bad leaving her home today because she loves the park and when she saw we were getting ready to go she ran to her travel crate, thinking she was going with us. Poor thing.

So she's back to wearing a doggy diaper. I'm hoping that as soon as this is over her hormones will balance out quickly and her body will be able to get the mange under control. Her family will be ready for her in about 3 weeks when they finish their move to Colorado and I'm hoping that Suki will be ready to join them in their new home not too long after that.

The photo above was taken a few hours before Sweet Suki turned into Monster Suki. She is happily off-leash in the back yard partaking in her favorite activity, chewing on sticks.