Omelet wrote:

> Last time I had a dog come into heat prior to spaying, a neighborhood
> stray dug into the yard, bred Misty, peed all over her and the front
> porch! It was a royal mess.

Our Bouvier came into heat shortly after we moved to this house. I had
built a kennel for her and she spent most of the day in the kennel while
she was in heat. We discovered that there were a lot of male dogs
roaming around, and they spent a lot of their time hanging around our
house. I didn't know whose dogs they were, but knowing what a male dogs
can be like around a bitch in heat I used to take a shotgun with me when
I took her back and forth to the kennel. Luckily I never had to use it
and she was spayed shortly after that first heat.

Friends on mine had a runted female Great Dane. She was normally a very
well behaved dog, but she was a slut. Every time she was in heat she
managed to sneak out of the house and have a tryst that ended up with a
litter of big puppies. They didn't want to have her spayed but ended up
doing it.