I'm having big problems with my dogs today. Murphy, 11 month old entire male is obsessed with my 2 year old spayed bitch. There is also a 3yr old spayed bitch but he is fine with her. He keeps trying to mount her and is obsessed with sniffing her which is making her growl, bare her teeth and snap, and then murphy starts barking. Nothing will stop him. We can't work out why he has sudeenly started to behave like this as he has been here for over a month and a half and had no problems at all. The only thinkg we can think of is that ellie has an infected lump on her foot which is going to be removed tommorrow, and he is also going mad to lick at it. (Weve put a bandage over it now. ) Could it be because there is a bitch in season somewhere nearby?

I'd be willing to bet it's the smell of the infection that's doing this to him. My two boys were suddenly terrible nuisances to one of my (spayed) bitches when she had an eye infection, sniffing her and mounting her, and howling in the night. As soon as the infection was cured they were back to normal. It's very strange.

I can confime that any infection or sore that exudes pus will make the boys fruity, especially young or inexperienced ones.

My freind had this problem with her boys when her bitch had a leaking sebaceous cyst.

Must be a bodily fluid thing.  Maybe pus and infection smell somethat similar to the bitches discharge when in season???

Can I say I agree with Brainless and JG on this one - but I think Brainless' last post was just too much info after dinner :P

Teri ;)
feeling decidedly squeamish now .......

Absolutely, urg! Its a nasty histiocytoma on her foot. We were waiting for it to go down, 6 weeks now, and it has started to, but the middle is infected and going necrotic and driving her potty, so we decided on saturday to have it removed. THe vet said it will continue to go down, but it may take another month or so, and that seems to unfair on her. Besides which if this is the effect it has on murphy, roll on tomorrow morning!!

Yep, it was definately the lump making murphy behave that way. Ellie had her lump off this morning. (She was in and out within the hour and i stayed with her the whole time!) and the minute she returned the differnece was noticeable. He never bothered her again and has settled down tonight to sleep without a fuss. Its strange what dogs will do!