Surprise!

Sort of.  My friend the vet visited the house again yesterday to discuss having Coconut "fixed."  He took one look at her (from a distance because Coconut won't let him anywhere near her) and proclaimed, "She has baby in one week...coming out in one week."  I hope the floozy is satisfied.

This is the same guy who was at the house two months ago when Coconut was "in love," and he told us to wait 2-4 months and he would "cut" her.  By my calculations, if we contacted him 2 months after that initial visit, she should not be delivering a puppy in one week.  Granted something may have been lost in translation.  We are pretty good at numbers, but perhaps he didn't say 2-4 months.  Maybe he said 2-4 weeks or 2-4 days.  He may even have said to come to his office between the hours of two and four.  Whatever it was he said, I wish we had understood more clearly.  A puppy?  In a week?  "Can he guarantee that it will just be one puppy?"  He just taps his head in response.  I think that means, "I think so," but it could mean, " I have a headache from talking to you lady."

Either way, based on the illustration he drew for me (photo on left), there is definitely a small dog coming out of the back end of a larger dog with the date of May 10th scribbled next to it.  No problem with the translation there.  He briefly tried to educate me about canine gestation periods (appears to be 60 days - once again bringing me back to my question of how this could have happened given our two month window).  Coconut apparently has the answers, and we know that she has been a very busy girl.

After getting over my initial shock about the impending puppy arrival, I tried to ask a few questions about what exactly we need to do to prepare for this miracle which will soon be taking place somewhere in our house (the fish pond if Coconut has her way as she's been flopping in there a lot lately).  I wanted to know if I am going to have to to gnaw off the umbilical cord, provide an epidural, engage in doggie Lamaze, or provide emotional support of any kind.  I was having trouble getting my point across, and the vet thought I was asking how this happened.  I swear he was blushing as he started to sketch out the birds and the bees for me.  I waved him off - trying to assure him that I knew how this happened - and got him to stop with the doggie porn.

I do, however, now have a lovely drawing of canine ovaries and fallopian tubes and an appointment to have Coconut spayed (I think) on June 20th at 9 a.m. (or is it June 9th at 20:00?) once she has "put out" the miracle mutt.  If I am thankful for anything in this experience, it is for the fact that her surgery will take place on the vet's kitchen table and not mine.  "Boys I cut at your house.  Girls I cut at mine."  Thanks for that.

The kids are having fun choosing names and imagining the possibilities if there are twenty babies instead of one.  My favorite is "Tit Nut" - a combination of the dominatrix "Titsie" next door and "Coconut" - ironic in that Titsie is the only neighborhood mutt that we can definitively rule out as the father.  Stay tuned, and to avoid similar atrocities in the rice paddy, heed the words of my friend Bob, "Help control the pet population. Have your pets spayed or neutered."