Time of the Season

I wonder if Hats and I are on some kind of psychic wavelength... after last nights dream, while walking the girls to school I notice (don't ask, it's gruesome) that Hats is experiencing her first heat cycle. Googling tells me that it lasts almost a month, but that I shouldn't have rushed home like a distressed maiden aunt with the vapours, as she will not allow a male dog to mount her for the first ten - twelve days of the cycle. After that apparently she will let any old mongrel in to have a go. The slapper. It lasts approximately twenty days. The website tells me that the most noticeable sign during this time, is that male dogs will hang around the house.
Oh please.
I can't get her spayed yet because a) I don't have £150 and b) during the cycle, if on heat, complications are a distinct possibility.

So, can I take her for walks or not? Do I have to carry a gallon of icy water in a bucket everywhere we go? I can't see either of us being willing to forego our three mile walks. Especially when I noticed a very handsome Italian Spinone on the last one. Poor Hats. Poor me.