CLOVER’S NOSTRIL DISCO

Every Pack has its trials. This was one of ours.

Clover has now entered the chat… and she has brought all of the drama.

She is currently 11½ months old, and this has been her very first heat cycle — which means this has been our first time navigating any of this too.

What I didn’t know (and very much wish I had) is that when the bleeding ends, you don’t magically get your dog back.

You get another month or two of hormone chaos instead.

Not eating. Mopey. Clingy. Nesting. Carrying Shamrock’s teddy bear like it’s her emotional-support baby. Claiming anything soft — including a very unfortunate Christmas pillow.

This is where we are right now.

Two nights ago, I pulled into the driveway and could hear her howling — from inside the house — the iconic Irish Wolfhound howl.

Clover was singing the song of her people, loud and proud for the whole world to hear.

Head thrown back. Chest lifted. Throat wide open in full ancient-wolf mode.

The kind of howl that makes the ground feel like it’s vibrating.

This can be a tough phase for anyone to get through, but here’s what made it harder: we are still very much on edge after what we went through with Shamrock’s sudden illness and death.

So when we see signs that something isn’t quite right with Clover, our brains don’t think “hormones.”

They go straight to:

OMG she’s dying.

Cue Justin’s bellowed declaration after she refused to eat, even from his hand:

“NO MORE FEMALE DOGS EVER.”

Cue me at 1 a.m. conducting what can only be described as a full-body wolfhound medical inspection.

I poked. I prodded. I pried her mouth open — not because of Shamrock, but to check teeth and gums for sores or ulcers that might explain why she hadn’t been eating.

I checked her ears — because Shamrock had mild allergies and I got very used to watching for redness, swelling, or infection.

I desperately felt her neck, praying not to find a swollen lymph node.

I checked her girl bits for any sign of urinary or skin infection.

I checked her back end too — because Shamrock was prone to anal gland impactions that sometimes became infected, and once you’ve lived through that, you never don’t check.

I looked for anything that could explain the last week and a half of strange behavior.

Which is why the flashlight came out.

Because when your dog is black and fluffy and you’re doing medical forensics in a dark family room… you can’t see a thing without one.

And this is where things took a turn.

Clover decided the flashlight was clearly a snack.

She attached her mouth to it. Licked it. Then sucked it halfway into her face.

I accidentally hit the strobe setting.

So there I was.

In a dark room.

With a wolfhound.

Whose mouth was glowing like a nightclub.

And suddenly…

Two tiny beams of light shot out of her nostrils.

Disco lights.

From her nose.

Clover. Nostril. Disco. Lights.

At that moment, I realized two things:

She was not dying.

I was losing my mind.

And the strange thing was… even though my brain had been screaming all night, somewhere underneath it all, I knew she was okay.

After the disco show, I finally said, “That’s it. We’re going to bed.”

So I packed up Copper — our 14½-year-old Golden Retriever/Australian Shepherd mix and resident wise old man — gathered up the seven cats, did a headcount on the four special-needs cross-beak house chickens in diapers (yes, that’s a thing), grabbed my stuff… and we all made our way upstairs together.

This is what life with an Irish Wolfhound looks like sometimes:

Big feelings. Big fear. Big love. And occasionally… a rave hosted by your dog’s sinuses.

We’ll get through this phase. She’ll eat again. She’ll settle again. Her hormones will stop lying to her.

But that night?

That night, she was a nesting, howling, teddy-bear-carrying, Christmas-pillow-hoarding, flashlight-powered disco wolf.

And somehow… that meant she was still here.

For anyone wondering:

Clover isn’t spayed yet based on guidance from our vet, her breeder, and breed-specific recommendations from organizations like the AKC and IWCA.