The masked heeler has been unusually testy lately. Particularly today. Snapping and snarling at her sister, even eldest son. Anyone who gets too close.

It's hormones, we know.

Not PMS, mind you, since she's been spayed and never known that female affliction.

Unless, of course, "PMS" stands for para-menstrual syndrome.

You see, her sister is not spayed. And is currently in heat, running around the house in her flower-decorated cloth butt-muzzle. And she is apparently at the peak of her receptiveness, as her tail curls tightly around her rear at the slightest touch (the better to get it out of the way), and she is, for the lack of a better word, "coy."

Well, okay, "horny bitch" might be a better word, but around here, we say she's being "coy". Sidling up to and suggestively bumping her mother, me, the wife, a chair, anything with two legs or more.

And, oh yes, her sister.

Who has, as she has at some stage in every heat of this little maskless heeler, had enough. And at each playful bounce, she has either snapped viciously at her hormone-tormented sister, or run away and leaned up against one of us.

"Tell her to stop!"

In our recent visitations with the neighboring blue-eyed male dog through the wooden fence, the little heeler has abandoned her previous attitude of "Let's tear down this fence and kill 'im," for an attitude of "If I jump up on your chest, will you throw me the rest of the way over the fence?"

We're well into week two. Only about a week to go. Fortunately she doesn't cycle as fast as the literature would have you believe. Was checking old photos from around Hallowe'en, and there was the little maskless heeler, dressed in her tartan butt-muzzle.

Yeah, once every nine months is often enough.

Just ask her sister.