Welcome Back... in such a big way.

Oh my! Its been over a year since my last post. What happened?!

   Well for starters, life. Life happened, and it was insane. We hit a rocky patch in our marriage, we lost a baby. We fought like hell for our marriage and we were rewarded for it. We took on remodeling our kitchen, we rearranged almost every room in our house, I was in a wedding, we decided to try for another baby, and we were blessed to conceive a month after. I convinced Ian to let me get a kitten, who is the most snuggly little thing ever and I adore her. We learned a lot in church, we decided to make some life changes, we refinanced, we re-evaluated and we re-grouped.
   And here we are. And by here I mean... I am 7 months pregnant with baby 4, we are almost prepared for Harvey to come, Our marriage is stronger and better than ever, we are embarking on an entirely new chapter in our lives and we are just simply excited. And with all of the new changes we decided that Reha needed to finally be medicated for her anxiety. New baby's can be stressful for dogs, and so can the absence of the family. The cage is a stressful environment for her as it is and after trying just about everything we could, medication was the last resort and we had finally hit rock bottom. So I scheduled the appointment.
   This morning I woke up, took Ellie to preschool, returned to retrieve the dog and headed to a new vet for a behavioral consult. I felt prepared. I thought ok, we have done everything else... we have tried the herbs, we have tried the thundercoat, we have tried the exercise, we have tried Benedryl, we have tried the anxiety desensitizing. And nothing. . she's still destroying her cage, she's still panting and shedding, she's still breaking out of the house if I leave.. even to go to the bus stop.
   BOY was I UNPREPARED for the answer I was about to get.

   So the vet discussed what we had done, offered some advice, got us the number for a behavioralist and prepared me for what that would bring.  And then she did a physical examination on Reha... and asked me a question that totally turned my day  UP SIDE DOWN...


                                Who told you this dog was a girl?

   Um... excuse me? What do you mean?!?!

   As it turns out, after 3 separate vets in her lifetime, and multiple examinations, my female Doberman is in fact not a female at all.. but instead a hermaphroditic male. What we were told was a benign tumor, is a partially distended testicle, with the other testicle remaining inside, undropped. The "penis" is small, located in the traditional vagina area, and surrounded by what appears to be a vulva.. The penis does not come out, as is customary with boy dogs, and appears to be painful, also indicative of hermaphroditic animals, and once we have HIM neutered we can have the vet see if there is also an actual uterus, making him a full hermaphrodite. The absence of a uterus would make him a Psuedo-hermaphrodite, meaning genetically he is all boy, but that the sex organs developed in a feminine way.

   The vet was very confused that 3 different vets before her had examined Reha and none of them discovered that she is in fact a HE. But this does go to explain some of the issues we have had, like why Reha has never entered a heat cycle.. hint hint... its not because of the anxiety as we had been told. And the presence of a uterus would further explain some of the behavioral issues as the dog has some serious hormonal issues going on. 
   So here we are... 4.5 years of having this dog and we find out today that we have a boy dog. The poor thing must have some serious identity issues going on. But we did leave with some Prozac and hopefully that settles the issue of the anxiety. In the meantime we have some serious adjusting to do, as I learn to call my girl dog a he.

   Let's just say explaining that to the kids was interesting ....