In the case of family canids , their reproductive capacities are aimed at ensuring pregnancy and the birth of a group of puppies that maintain the genetic baggage of the parents.
It all starts with the female’s ability to provide information about her reproductive status (pheromones, behaviors, vocalizations…) and with the male’s ability to interpret that information (smell, sight…)
A male can perceive the olfactory messages of a female in heat that is located several kilometers away, which ensures the stimulation, as a general rule, of more than one male capable of “fulfilling” the female’s requirements.
If a male and a female, receiver and sender of the information, meet thanks to the messages emitted, a courtship of sniffing and approaches will take place that will lead, more or less quickly depending on the “experience” of the participants, to the penetration.
Here another fundamental characteristic of the mount of the familiar canids enters the scene: the penile anatomy.
The dog’s penis has two fundamental characteristics for the sexual/reproductive act:
- Penile bone: dogs have a bone inside the penis, longitudinal as its structure, and that allows continuous and sufficient rigidity to maintain intercourse for the necessary time with sufficient rigidity.
- Penile bulb: this structure that surrounds the penis in the part closest to the testicles, has a dilation capacity at the time of intercourse that makes it responsible for what is known as “buttoning”, or the process by which the male remains attached to the female’s vagina long enough to complete sexual function.
The male penetrates the female, and with the excitement the bulb dilates and the buttoning occurs … But why?
When the male ejaculates we can say that he does it in three phases
- At first, the ejaculate is an absent fraction of sperm, with the main content of the prostate glands.
- In a second moment, once the buttoning has been completed, the ejaculate content is emitted with the main presence of spermatozoa .
- In a third step, the male expels another fraction with a low sperm count.
The buttoning of the penis allows the three mentioned fractions to be deposited, ensuring that the sperm deposit will be sufficient and will allow fertilization .
The buttoning is released when complete ejaculation has occurred and when the male’s arousal subsides, the penile bulb relaxes and the penis is released from the female’s vagina.
This would be the physiological explanation of buttoning, of “getting stuck”… but, are there reasons other than purely physiological ones?
The females of family canids, at the time of heat, only have to follow the mandates of their instincts, instincts that lead them to ensure that at least the genetic material of a male will be responsible for providing a litter that ensures the maintenance of their species and its own genetic background.
To do this, the females have a promiscuous behavior, being able to have sex with several males, which is why it is possible for a female to become pregnant with several males in the same pregnancy.
The buttoning of the male makes it easier for him to produce his genetic contribution, which will be deposited in its entirety without interference from other males that may be competing for the same female.
The buttoning allows the contribution of the male, but does not completely avoid the possibility that the female could be mounted by another or other males later, males that would enter into genetic competition with the first to mount the female.
On the part of the male, an attempt is made to ensure his genetic survival, his exclusively, and on the part of the female, her own genetic survival is also ensured and, in addition, the maintenance of the species, for which her innate mechanisms lead her to allow the Mounts more than one specimen in each heat.
And up to here the intervention of female and male, or males, in one of the most important moments to ensure reproduction.
But, unfortunately, the human being has the absurd and always present “capacity” to pose evil at any time in the life of other living beings.
There are not a few presumed rationals who, when observing a pair of “buttoned” dogs, try to separate them… WHY?
The answer would be to confirm the stupidity and lack of respect of certain individuals towards the different types of life that surround them.
The “fun” of trying to separate two buttoned dogs, apart from being an aberration that qualifies “per se” the human who performs it, can be the cause of physical alterations in both dogs:
- Vulvovaginal tears.
- Penile bone fractures.
- Penile tears.
The “sticking” of dogs is, as we have seen, a specific system of family canids to ensure reproduction.
Let these situations develop without unnecessary human intervention.
