I'm unsure about this, some say phantoms can appear as soon as the season has finished, others that it won't appear till three months later, or around eight weeks. Any info on this would be great. My bitch is on day 10 if she's in whelp and is showing signs but reading conflicting things about phantoms has me very confused.

2 of my girl's have had phantom's, both approx. 7/8 wks after the end of their season. 
As i understand it, about the time they would have puppies if they were in whelp.

The phantom being a false pregnancy starts at the same time a normal pregnancy does, the dog behaves as if it is pregnant and this lasts for varying lengths of time depending on her hormone levels, very rarely they will go the whole 9 weeks plus a false labour, all the symptoms are the same just no pups.

The bitch of mine who had 4 phantoms[only after being mated not on any seasons inbetween]they lasted from 5 to 7 weeks and then she would return to normal litterally overnight, she looked more pregnant than my bitch who had been mated a few days earlier and went on to have 3 pups, I took weekly belly shots and measurements for comparison and at 5 weeks the phantom returned to normal,this was her third one.W hat I have found if the symptoms of pregnancy seem premature then chances are it isn't real, when she did finally get pregnant the signs and symptoms followed the same pattern as my other bitch and it was 6 weeks in before there was any marked outward signs.

After the recent thread about a bitch who was thought to be having a bad phantom and turned out to be full of dead pups a few days later I would be wary if there was any chance they could have been mated accidentally putting it down to a phantom especially if things got too realistic as in this case.

Thanks, it's great to have the extra info. I don't think it's so unusual that she's showing the signs so early as she did the exact same thing last time (I kept a very detailed blog at the time) and went on to have a litter so it isn't alarming me, but I would hate to think she was uncomfortable so wanted to get as much information as possible under my belt.

I'm sorry to hear your bitch went through such realistic phantoms, I'd be stressed to the max if that happened to me!

I think you ad your litter just after me last time :). My bitch always has phantoms but with her a real pregnancy  is very different.