There’s nothing worse than listening to male dogs, who still have their testicles, bark and whine all night long because the bitch among them is in heat.

My daughter has a malinois named Zazo. She’s a good dog, if a little crazy. You have to approach her a certain way and watch to see whether she gives you the crazy eye or lays down her ears—if she doesn’t, you don’t have to worry about her going for your throat. I can be a little blasé about that because my husband trained serious dogs for most of our marriage and I’ve laid a Rottweiler on the ground once when she went for me—it’s all about establishing a pecking order. But back to the problem. Zazo went into heat the day before I arrived here to help the red-headed hellion.

Last night, there was no getting any sleep. This morning the shepherd and the malinois were walked together—yeah, we’ve been wanting them to tie—but the screeching from the male when she kept trying to crawl away from him when his man-part was still locked inside her had me saying, “You go, girl.” The really painful part of this ordeal is the male dachsund. He thinks he’s got a chance. And he’s wearing out himself and everyone else with his constant whining.

I stayed up to help daughter with her homework after she got home from her Sprint job at 1:00 AM. We went to bed about 3:30. At 7:00 the alarm went off so that we could walk dogs and get the 5-year-old ready for school. Then we went back to bed. Daughter can sleep through the noise, but here I am bleary-eyed and making a really lousy posting because I’m ready to roast two pairs of nuts.