Today, a friend texted me that he’d just learned his dog had a penis…in her mouth.
Let me explain.
Adam is a new dog owner, and I’d recently recommended that he buy a “bully stick” for Clover to chew on. Someone — not me! — then clued him into what a bully stick is. “She loves them!” he said to me. “But did you know each one is a little cow penis?” It is indeed. Yes, Adam, your dog loves dick. But who doesn’t!
If there is one thing in this world that I have a lot of, it’s bully sticks. Looking for bovine schlong? I’m your girl. At School For The Dogs, we have a fridge that contains nothing but bully sticks. Kate and I hand them out like they’re samples, but they’re not. We bought them to resell, but we suck at retail and the peace and pleasure caused by a dog with a cow penis in his mouth is worth more than the $1 profit we’d make if we dealt in a non dog-behavior currency. Bully sticks are all natural — they contain just one ingredient! — and the choking hazards are far less than with rawhide. They can keep a dog busy for a long while. I usually recommend that people give them to their dogs as often as once a day. A dog who is chewing on a bully stick is a happy dog–and is also a dog who is less likely to chew on your couch.
Bully sticks are brown and they look kind of like a cross between a ligament and a cigar. People ask me what they are all the time, and usually, I lie. I say, “They’re some kind of bull tendon.” Actually, this is not a complete lie. I’ve always known that they’re made from bull penis, but I guessed that maybe a tendon is a kind of muscle? Which is what the penis is? Or maybe it’s a tendon that attaches to the penis? I don’t know about these things. And could a bull penis really have such little…girth? I suppose I just chose not to dwell on it. I mean, whatever it is, it’s gross. But lots of things we eat are gross if you think too much about them. Anyway, I’m not the one eating the bull penis. The dogs are. And they don’t seem to be at all effected by the “yuck” factor. They also like eating poop.
But, today, I decided to try to educate myself about what bully sticks actually are. The ones that Kate and I buy in bulk from BestBullySticks.com are usually only about eight-inches long. I imagine a cow penis would be bigger than that. However, I think they’ve been chopped up from something longer. I’ve seen bully sticks that are as tall as I am… and that doesn’t seem right either. Maybe they are stretched when they’re dried? A penis that is longer than the female cow seems like it would be evolutionarily a bad idea! Then again, I guess most calfs are the product of artificial insemination now, so perhaps the size thing doesn’t matter so much. Are we breeding cows to have long dongs for our dogs’ chewing pleasure?
To attempt to answer these questions, I did some online research about cow penises. What do they look like before they’re chopped up into small pieces? Is the “bully stick” the actual penis or is it a tendon that attaches to the penis? Or is the penis a tendon? Should they have let me graduate high school without this knowledge?
What followed was some online research done while I was sitting on a long bus ride this morning; if the guy next to me was looking at my screen, he sure was in for a treat.
First of all, I looked up a diagram of the human male anatomy as a point of reference. After all, it is the kind of animal penis most of us know best. Above is an arrow to what I’d imagined possibly corresponded to what a bully stick might be.