Not long after Lulu died in September, my mother got anxious to get another dog for “company.” The fact that I am staying with her full-time now doesn’t seem to count.
A neighbor took it upon himself to find Mom a dog and started forwarding regular posts of dogs needing to be rehomed. Most of them were no-go. Too young. Too old. Too male. Too big. Finally, Luna popped up. She was advertised as a three-year-old chihuahua, affectionate and calm. Her family was letting her go because their two youngest children didn’t know how to play with a dog. I texted that my mother might be interested and showed my mom the photo and description. Mom was interested and the phone rang soon after.
The woman said that they loved Luna and hated to let her go. They had gotten her from another lady who decided she didn’t need a dog. Luna had been with them for seven months and “we’d love to keep her …” She sang Luna’s praises and said we could come meet her that day if we wanted to. She lived about an hour away. I asked Mom if she wanted to meet the dog and she said yes without hesitation. I was pretty sure we’d be bringing a dog back later.
After an hour-long drive, we met the woman and Luna at a city park. Mom stayed in the car as she petted Luna’s head and I asked what I hoped were the right questions about food, house training, shots. The woman wasn’t sure about many things. Finally, I took a deep breath and asked if the dog had been spayed. Not sure, but she thought she’d had a litter of puppies at some point. I was sure the dog hadn’t been spayed. I looked at Mother. “Mom, she probably hasn’t been spayed.” The response was immediate – “We’ll get her spayed.”
I already knew the answer to my next question. “Do you want to take her?”
“Yes. I like her.”
Luna rode with us back to Mother’s house and was a perfect, well-behaved passenger with no signs of anxiety. I called the vet, told them Mom had adopted a new dog and we needed to get her checked out. Told them she likely needed to be spayed. Made an appointment for Saturday morning. Luna seemed to adjust to the house quickly but was hesitant to go outside without me. As she explored, I noticed that she was spotting blood. I tried to check her underside but she wasn’t having it. Finally, I let Mom know what I was seeing.. “She seems to be bleeding a bit. Do you think she’s in heat?”
Mom assured me that she was not and that I should take her to the vet the next day. Early the next morning, after cleaning up little bloody spots on the floor, I called the clinic and asked if they might work her in that day. I explained the problem and the receptionist said, “She’s in season. See you Saturday.” They’re calling it “in-season” now.
Thus began my training to be a canine gynecologist. I found out about the four phases of female dog heat and saw that Luna was in the first phase. I bought a wrap to keep the bleeding in check but Luna was having none of it. In the meantime, Mom, whose first response to the news had been “What have I done?” was becoming attached to her new buddy. “What have I done?” became “Poor thing, she can’t help it.”
The name, however, was a problem. Lulu had been “Luna” before Mother changed it. And now she had another Luna. She has some sort of aversion to that name and vowed she’d get used to it this time, but it kept causing her trouble. She wanted to say “Lulu” or “Lula” or anything but “Luna.” Finally, she decided to rename the dog but agreed that a new name should not be too far removed from the one Luna had been used to for three years.
Inspiration hit. Not long ago, I reviewed a book about the Bankhead political family of Alabama. An offspring of that family was Tallulah Bankhead, an acclaimed and colorful actor of the early twentieth century stage. Tallulah was prone to outrageous and unfettered behavior and, in a movie magazine interview, she lamented how long she had been without a man. “I need a man!” she moaned. Her Aunt Marie, back in Alabama, wrote a letter to her niece, scolding her for her outbursts and accusing her of the “yapping of a hot canine …”
“I have a solution,” I said. “You have a hot canine – name her Tallulah and call her ‘Lula’. She’ll have a name you’re more comfortable with and I’ll have a story.”
So “Lula” it is. The vet declared her healthy, gave her shots, and will schedule surgery after her current situation has passed. I am learning first-hand about the second stage of heat as I follow Lula around with a damp rag to wipe up the tiny bloody spots. The female’s tail takes on a snaky life of its own. Based on my canine gyno training, this is her way of signaling that she, in Tallulah’s words, “needs a man.” And, as the Persian proverb says, “This too shall pass.”
Tallulah
Professional Southerner 