The Romantic Dogs

There is a chocolate lab that live next door (the one I have complained about). Well recently she hit puberty and our dog (Big Dog) has taken a liking to her. Our dog has been great. He usually stays in our yard or plays out in the pasture and usually stays clear of the busy road in front of our house where the cars go 70 mph or more, unlike the other dogs in the area. It is surprising there hasn't been a dead dog yet. Anyway, Hersey (neighbor's dog), would always escape their fence and go running off with Big Dog. At first he couldn't stand her, then about a month ago is when I noticed them running off together and sometimes with other neighborhood dogs, but I noticed his attention change toward her. He became very affectionate and rubbing on her and hanging around her all the time. Her owners were constantly making fence repairs but it did not matter. In the past two weeks things have become very obvious between them and they are now out in the front yard "being married" as Jonathan commented. We figure as long as this has been going on and neither are spayed or neutered, she is probably pregnant. They couldn't spay her until she was 6 months old and she is now about 8 months and they just haven't had the chance to get it done. We were trying to put as little money into this dog as possible since he is a stray that ended up coming our way. The other day our neighbors fixed their fence real well and put chicken wire on the bottom of the fence so she can not dig her way out. Then yesterday as we went to the bus we found our dog in their yard doing stuff that grossed the kids out. It took me a while to figure out how he was getting in while I am trying to be sneaky and follow him in my muddy sweats. I ended up going to the store and getting a collar for him and tying him to our porch for right now. Last night we were talking to our neighbor and she was saying that Hersey has been so sad and mopey because he has been tied up. Big Dog keeps barking and howling and choking himself to try and get off of that porch. He got to see her last night and they were just staring at each other. It was so sad, yet so sweet. We are going to try to have him neutered, the problem is that he might be too old. I don't care if he runs the countryside, but he can't be breaking in to other people fenced back yards.