Friday 4th February 2011

Now for all you young male puppies out there aspects of today’s post may seem exciting but other aspects of it will be very depressing. The exciting bit is that if you are fit and healthy and have all the right markings, then stud dog is definitely the career for you. You can actually get paid to follow your natural urges, although you will have your partners selected for you by other people. The good news is they will all look lovely and on the whole have nice temperaments, but they may not actually like you, so you may still need to be careful. You will always like them. The smell does that do you. They could make a cat smell that way and you’d find her attractive.

It isn’t all good news though. Even if you have already gone out and opened your own bank account to put your pocket money in, you may find the money gets paid to your owners and unless you have a very good relationship with them, you may not see any of your earnings. They will use the excuse that they have had to pay out for your health tests in advance of your nuptials and that is true to some extent, but if you do it often enough there will be a surplus that should be paid into your account.

If you are a sentimental sort of chap, being a stud dog is probably not for you. Alarmingly, you are unlikely to be invited to meet with the same girl twice. In general, unless she has a very small litter, you will move on to another girl and then another. Now that can be fun, if you are the irresponsible sort, but if you are the sort of boy who develops feelings for a girl it can all be rather alarming. Goodness knows what the girls must think of it.

I will come back to the whole question of whether you will have any involvement in bringing them up as a separate issue. As with many things there are two sides to every story and whilst the responsible dog might want a role in bringing up his puppies, the problem of absentee fathers is one that many a girl faces.