heat Archives - Owl Medicine: Shamanic Healing

Chocolate Lambs

This will be a quick pre-Easter post. I couldn’t believe my eyes the other day when I saw these chocolate lambs (with their tails dipped in white chocolate!) gamboling in the field behind our house. Naturally, I stopped my car and rolled down the window to take their photo – and couldn’t believe my eyes when they both immediately stopped what they were doing and turned to look at me. I don’t know what it surprised me so much, but it did.

It sure looks like these two could be identical twins. They couldn’t be cuter. And the two donkeys that share the field with them agree wholeheartedly, braying their approval.

Just another sign of the arrival of spring. Babies. Lambie-kins. Heck, I even saw sparrows getting frisky today underneath our feeders. Actually, the male snuck up behind the female and made her jump three feet in the air! Boy, did she give him a beak lashing.

Quick Pacha and Brutus Update

We’re all feeling the torture of not being able to play outside together. One has to stay inside while the other gets to frisk about outside. It’s especially torturous now that this warm weather has arrived. I wish I were quicker on the draw with my phone camera. Watching the pups try to catch bugs is simply adorable.

We’re all eagerly awaiting the end of this quarantine. The bright side to this, though, is that it does give Karl and me special one-on-one time with each pup that we rarely enjoy.

In the end, this ‘heat’ season may be bringing us all closer.

One thing I am not enjoying is the onset of tick season. Ugh. I just found two crawling on me as I wrote this post. Bleccch. I’m sure this warm weather is causing a tsunami of eggs to hatch. Ugh. Just the thought makes me shudder…

Just too cute – Photo: L. Weikel

(T+127)

Finding Zen in the CC – ND #124

Biological Imperative

In case you didn’t get the veiled reference I made back in this post, our little Pacha and Brutus aren’t babies anymore. No, it would appear eight months of age heralds that magic moment when puppies (our puppies, at least) begin feeling their oats and desiring, with a biological imperative of epic ferocity, to sow them.

Yes, yes. Their plain old, standard issue crate has gradually morphed from being labeled the ‘Red Crate’ (so named since the last week of April) to the ‘Chastity Crate’ last night.

While Pacha felt a bit punk and confused over the bodily changes that started almost two weeks ago, she took a lot of comfort in bonding with me. All of a sudden, our notoriously rebellious and sassy Pacha became Mommy’s Girl Pacha – a role that surprised both of us. She stuck to me like Velcro. And to be clear, it wasn’t because she was trying to get away from any of the males or felines in the household. None of them were bugging her. It was simply a case of her needing to be understood without having to say a word. In other words, she needed some girl time a la The Red Crate*.

Brutus asking, “What????” – Photo: L. Weikel

And Then Everything Changed

As far as her flowering womanhood went, Brutus was curious and a little puzzled why she wasn’t seeming to want to play as much. He knew something was ‘going on down there,’ and he was happy to make sure she wasn’t dying. And while we did of course have to call him off (and her off him), the tackling of each other wasn’t happening overwhelmingly more often than it ever did. The two of them have always wrestled and messed around.

As it happens, I ran into a friend at Pet Smart yesterday and told her that Pacha was coming into her womanhood. (Becoming a bitch, while technically accurate, definitely holds far too much judgmental baggage.) She proceeded to tell me a story about her dad and how he thought he’d built some excellent pens for their dogs when they went into heat. Well. Their males apparently became so infatuated with their biological imperative that they literally ripped boards off the sides of the pens to be with their girls. Long story short: in no time there were 40 puppies.

She laughed when I said we seemed to be keeping them away from each other without much trouble.

I swear, I got home and what I’d sensed shifting that morning had become utterly manifest while I was out shopping (at Pet Smart, for one). Brutus has suddenly become a relentless rut-seeker. He is more single-minded than I have ever seen any animal be. And it has suddenly become a two person job to keep him off her.

It’s astounding.

Brutus not liking the CC quite as much as Pacha – Photo: L. Weikel

Enter the Chastity Crate

And so now the Red Crate had become the Chastity Crate. They take turns being inside it, since we don’t want it to feel like a punishment to either of them. Neither really seems to mind, although they’re both obviously sad and miss playing with their best friend.

When the lust becomes too much, there is some whining and digging at the CC. But they don’t get anywhere, so they eventually get tired and fall asleep.

To be honest, Pacha seems to enjoy being in the Chastity Crate more than Brutus, presumably because it’s a respite. Brutus simply looks forlorn and seems to wonder why his world has changed so drastically when all he wants to do is L-O-V-E his Pacha.

Sigh.