How a desexed Darcy may have fooled us all

Working in the dog training and minding business you always have to be prepared for some surprises, good and bad, happy and sad.

I thought I had seen and heard a fair bit in my time about dog behaviour, their antics, accidents that can happen and more.  However, this week I was thrown a real curly one when Miss Pippa, the pedigree Toy Poodle, came for a week’s holiday at PoochesHQ and to spend time with her good friend Dynamite Darcy.

If you have watched Season 1 of the TV show, you would have seen Miss Pippa in a couple of the Aussie Dog Product segments, and in quite a few closing scenes at my feet as well.

There is no doubt that she sure is one pretty pooch and its no wonder Dynamite Darcy is besotted with her. This has always been a cause for laughter between her mum and me as it is very much a case of a ‘Lady and the Tramp’ love story.

Fast forward to the time of writing this and I here I sit with bitten nails, probably a few more grey hairs and waiting with baited breath for the results from a blood test Darcy had to have on Tuesday.

It seems the microchip recorded ‘desexed’ Darcy might well have misled us all.

And, with such a shady history of where he came from (not to mention he’s listed as a Maltese X Toy Poodle – and let me tell you he ain’t no Maltipoo!) there is a chance that he may well have impregnated Miss Pippa, who it turns out isn’t as sweet and innocent as she looks.

I’ll rewind.  Miss Pippa was recently on heat and after finishing came to stay for her little holiday.   Whilst Darcy has always shown a keen interest in Pippa and has been quiet amorous in his advances in the past, Darcy as far as I knew, was desexed. It says so on his microchip record that I followed up when I took over his ownership, and he certainly hasn’t got any you know what’s hanging around his you know what!!

So there I was, sitting at the dining table having a meeting when we hear the tell tale squeals of two dogs mating – well once they’ve finished mating.  (If you know what this entails then yes, they were definitely connected and had done the deed. And, if you don’t, then I recommend that you remain blissfully ignorant!).

Shell-shocked I realized I had heard that same sound during the week when I was in another room and came rushing in to see if they were quarreling.    I also began to wonder how many times when I was out they had gotten up to such business, particularly as Miss Pippa seemed intent on constantly parading herself and rubbing up to the hapless Darcy whenever she had the chance.

So I immediately looked for the tell tattoos in his ears (which are generally done at the time of desexing) and I swear I had seen in his ears before.  Hmm, it must have been another dog’s ears because there were none. I did another frantic search of this nether regions just to make sure there weren’t two teeny-weeny ‘sultanas’ that I might have missed.  Nope, definitely not.

So, just to be safe I popped into my Vet’s on Monday morning to ask if I was missing something.  They checked too.  No ‘sultanas’ visible but also definitely no tattoos anywhere.

Turns out however that a dog’s testicles can be retained inside of them.  This is know as Cryptorchidism and can occur in almost all breeds of dogs, but toy and miniature breeds are at a significantly higher risk.    Can you feel my panic levels rising now?  Particularly since Miss Pippa is actually meant to be having her cherry popped by a rather regal pedigree French Poodle early next year and now it seems that Dynamite Darcy has indeed had his dynamite wick lit and Miss Pippa’s cherry is no longer so sweet!

We now have an agonising wait until early next week to see the results from Darcy’s hormone test and if that comes in with the result we are NOT hoping for then it’s more bad news.   It means an operation for Darcy to remove his testicles from inside of him, and then another two weeks wait before Miss Pippa can have a pregnancy test.

I now know what a mother whose teenage son has gotten his girlfriend pregnant feels like. Oh the shame and worry about what lies ahead!!

Please keep you fingers and toes crossed for us both and let’s just hope that it is just a case of Darcy being blinded by Miss Pippa’s beauty and a Vet that for some reason did not give Darcy his tattoo.

Although, if his ‘Maltipoo’ status on his microchip is anything to go by…it’s not boding well for any of us.   Till next time, Lara & (Dynamite-indeed) Darcy x

UPDATE – Darcy and I are very happy to announce that the test results came back showing his hormone levels were far below a non-desexed male so all is well in the world again and Darcy has not got the pure bred Pippa pregnant, nor does he require his you know what’s removed from inside of him.   The Vet’s are still mystified as to why he and Pippa were so active…but if they saw how much she flirts and teases him they would know he had no hope!!