Not All Empty Scrotums are Sad

Cooper got a "nad-ectomy" last week. It was necessary, not only because we are responsible pet owners and there are more than enough pups running around already that need homes, but because the dog was hell bent on inappropriate sexual behavior. One day Dear Son was sitting on the floor minding his own business and I caught the dog hunched over him from the back having such intense pelvic seizures that I'm surprised he didn't throw his doggy spine out of joint. I was horrified, and I couldn't get the dog to put his stuff away quick enough. That was the last straw. The nad-ectomy was still ten days away, and I was heading for the scissors because I couldn't deal with it any longer. Fortunately I cooled down before I followed through.

And we finally made it (no pun intended) and Cooper has been "de-nadded." It was all good until he came home from the vet completely agitated because he was apparently certain he needed to urinate despite not being able to get his plumbing to cooperate. It was cold that night and he wanted to go outside every five minutes. I finally resorted to huddling over him in the dark and shining a flashlight on his doggy genitals as he strained to do his business. I was watching to see if anything was coming out. It wasn't. This odd behavior (on both our parts...but only literally on the dog's "parts") repeated numerous times before I called my mom (she is a nurse, after all). My mom, of course, got me all worked up with her talk of swelling and the urethra and not being able to eliminate, and bladders bursing and such. So I finally called the emergency after hours vet clinic to get the reassurance I needed that this issue could wait until morning when I could contact my regular vet. We put the pup in his crate for the night, I took some Tylenol PM to destress (the dog's condition was only one of many issues last week) and zonked for the night. The husband proceded to puke his guts out all night long while I slept blissfully unaware, but that's another story (one that I promise not to tell you any more about). When I woke up to take the dog out the next morning, he peed a nice long gratifying stream and we both breathed a sigh of relief. He was probably about as happy to have me stop shinging a spotlight on his personals as he was to be able to relieve himself properly.

Sometime between that late night anxiety over my dog's inabilty to pee and the morning relieving of the same, I hopped onto Google and did a search that I would have never guessed I would ever do. It was something like, "dog can't pee after neutering." I didn't get a whole lot of information about that, but I did stumble onto a site promoting fake dog testicles. Really. They're called "Neuticles." You really MUST click the link to read it for yourself. Oh, and there's even pictures! I can't make this stuff up. Apparently implants are not just for human breasts anymore. Now our culture apparently feels the need for our dogs to have asthetically appealing genitals. According to one consumer, “One of my reservations about having my dog neutered was that it’d be sad to just have an empty scrotum.”

Ummm, yeah. We wouldn't want our dogs to have sad empty scrotums now, would we? Incidentally, I'll vouch for the fact that not ALL dogs are sad about their empty scrotums. Cooper apparently feels light and happy and liberated. He has been running and bounding and leaping and playing like never before. I'm certainly no expert on dog scrotums, but it seems pretty evident to me that my own pup's scrotum is happy not being weighed down anymore.

Incidentally, I just happened to take this pic a couple days before the nad-ectomy. Contrary to Dear Husband's jovial mockery of me, the pic had absolutely NOTHING to do with me wanting to preserve a memory of his pre-surgery "intactness;" I was simply amused at his choice of sleeping positions.