Uncle Frank's Procedure

Frank has had “the chop”. Basically (and I am certain this is the medical term) he had his baws deleted. I think it is more commonly known as “castration”. Now, when Connie and I got Frank we had already decided that this was the course of action we’d be taking. There are several major reasons for this, of course, which are that

 

a) It will reduce his need to hump things

b) it will calm him down in many other ways

c) it reduces the chance of infection, complications, and cancer in that specific area.

When we finally got Frank, it was also suggested that it was the humane thing to do. Frank, despite being sired by a pedigree dog and a delivered by a pedigree bitch, cannot be registered as pedigree because his mother was nine years old, with eight being the limit of a pedigree mother. What this means that despite having a lineage leading back eight generations of dogs (seriously) on chart that we got and his hip score being great, we can’t breed him with a KC (Kennel Club) number. Not that we would. I mean, someone could’ve ask us for him to father a litter of puppies but I’d feel rather strange about that, especially considering it wouldn’t be us. The major advantage of this arrangement was that we got a fully healthy, gorgeously handsome, well bred pedigree dog for about 40% of the normal price.

If you really need to know, Frank was the result of a sexy sexy accident between his mother and his father (Ellie and Tam). Unplanned litter of puppies!

There was a difficulty for me to separate what he had done to what I would feel like if I had it… done. Especially now. It was even harder to deal with when almost all of my friends were making the same joke – even saying he’d never forgive me. This is plaintively nonsense, because as the person who gives him food and rubs his belly, he appears to forgive and forget within seconds. I’ve stepped on his paw too many times to not know that he is like this. He has already been overly excited at being back home. Spending a full day in the vets is nothing short of… well, unfair on him.

But as I say, it had to happen.

You will be glad to know that despite all this he has basically returned to normal within a few days. His six month birthday was the 3rd of December, which is startling actually, but it makes me so excited for the next six months.