For many years my house was split right down the middle, perfectly even along gender lines. We had me as the patriarch of the family, my wife as the actual boss of the family, our handsome son was our oldest child, and our beautiful daughter was our youngest. Life was perfect, and there was a natural balance in the home. There was a time when we had a goldfish as a pet, but nobody could really tell what sex it was, so it essentially brought a gender-neutral component to our house. Then things started to change; our son went off to college, we rescued a female dog from the pound, and suddenly, it was me and three ladies in the house. I was the only male left. Essentially, I was the last man standing (to pee).
With those changes, the house certainly did sway in the female hormonal direction. There were a lot more decorative pillows on things, and the show that populated our television the most was about drag queens. I survived it mostly by just making sure I put the toilet seat down and by spending lots of time alone in the garage. I wasn’t really accomplishing anything in the garage, but I was in there among the tools and I felt manly.
Then we rescued a little boy puppy, and suddenly the household went plus one in the direction of the male category. My wife has an enormous heart and spared no expense getting this homeless stray back to health. She bought the finest foods for the puppy, read endlessly about the best way to care for the puppy, and overwhelmingly loved the puppy more than anything in the world (including me, it appeared).
Then one day, once the puppy was feeling a little better and off of his medications, the puppy became extremely male. He liked to roll over and show his man parts, he was aggressive in the way he played with our other dog, and he humped everything in the house that moved. Suddenly, my wife, whom I love, wasn’t as impressed with our sweet little rescue puppy. She thought something was wrong with him. Things definitely escalated when she caught the puppy aggressively humping our poor female dog’s head. Our older dog just stood there and took the abuse, but looked toward my wife with eyes that asked, “Is there no dignity in this house?”
Right then my wife decided the most important thing to do in the whole wide world was to have the puppy immediately neutered. She spoke to our veterinarian, and the doctor said he would prefer to wait until the puppy was 6 months old, which would be four months out. This was unacceptable to my wife. So, she started shopping around for a shelter that would do the surgery immediately. It seemed like she was on a mission to destroy any added maleness to our household, and I called her out on it.
“Hey Baby, I’m confused. You have done everything step by step, doctor’s orders, in the care for this puppy. But suddenly, because he humped your leg one time, you want to ignore the doctor’s advice and cut the puppy’s balls off?”
“We can’t have him humping everything in the house.”
“He’s a dog, it isn’t even a sexual thing; it’s more of a dominance thing. He’s trying to be the alpha.”
“Even more reason to have him neutered. I don’t want him trying to dominate things in this house using his penis.”
“Baby, he is an 8-week-old animal. He doesn’t know the difference. Having his testicles may help him develop into a normal grown dog. That’s why the vet wants to wait until 6 months.”
“I don’t care. I already made the appointment. It’s done. His balls will be gone by Wednesday.”
I looked over at the puppy, who was humping a stuffed animal, and shrugged my shoulders, “Sorry, little guy. I tried. Who knows around here—I might be next.”
Rob and the puppy are in the garage hiding from the women. To read more from Rob Krider or contact him, visit robkrider.com.
This article appears in Jan 31 – Feb 7, 2019.