I have always found that when a bitch has been mated and taken, her vulva does not go back down to the size it is when she is not in season. Has anyone ever had a bitch whose vulva shrank back after mating yet she was still pregnant?

'Fraid not!!   It's probably my first indication of a pregnancy as all mine are like this - the vulva doesn't go back to the 'resting' size. 

Yes that's what I thought. Oh well!

Same here, they always seem to stay a little "bigger" down below if pregnant. Mind you its not so easy to tell on a 2nd litter I find

I did wonder if previous litters would make a difference as it does in cats -this would be a fourth (breed has small litters) but the vulva really does look small to me.

Was her vulva that swollen when she was in season?

One of my bitches shrunk back down and had no signs whatsoever compared to other bitches.....she went on to have a litter of 12!!

Ali

She wasn't massively swollen when in season, but more than now. Bucksmum -oh I will hang on to a teeny shred of hope then. :) I am getting her scanned no matter what, to play safe. It's early days yet. It's  a last chance of a litter due to her age (I will not try again next season) and it's a repeat mating of what gave me a wonderful litter before, but the only bitch in that litter (the pup I kept) developed pyometra and had to be spayed earlier this year, without having had pups. And sadly her brothers are all in pet homes and neutered as well! She wasn't even meant to be mated to this dog again -she's on breeding terms and her breeder wanted a different dog used, but the bitch refused him, just did not like him, and made it clear WHO she wanted so we went for the other dog to get a mating at all.

M.  I'd not give up hope - one of mine, mated twice, went back to a more coloured discharge during her third week.   Although she was otherwise fine, as I'd never seen this before with my previous bitches, I just felt she'd never taken.   In the event, she had an uneventful pregnancy, and 9 of what were probably the best puppies we'd ever bred .... we kept 3, 2 bitches and a male (because the owner of the sire said I'd be nuts to let him go!), bringing them back to the UK with us (and 4 others!).  Unfortunately the male's mouth, which was closer than I'd have liked from the outset really, but considered okay in Canada where 'edge to edge' is allowed, wasn't right when they came out of quarantine at going on 20 months (no Pet Passport at that time).  I let him be used by another experienced breeder here, with the full knowledge of his bite - she was so pleased with the first litter that she did a repeat and he's now back of quite a lot of hounds in the UK.   The other two, the girls, did well in the ring - one taking a UK Champ. title and the other, always rather overshadowed by her sister, did manged to be Crufts Perm.qualified.

I hope you get the litter you hope for, under the circumstances.

Thank you MamaBas. :)

I'm playing the waiting game too.......can't decide if her vulva has shrunk back to normal or not, it doesn't swell like my other bitches anyhow.........still, 11 days post mating & we have a whitish ( not smelly) discharge............not off her food in typical Labrador style, but has got a bit of an upset tummy?

Fingers crossed for us both x

Good luck Jolene!

UPDATE: She has now gone off her food. 3 days of hardly eating at all. This is a bitch that NEVER stops eating unless pregnant, so maybe........ She is booked in for a scan Friday the 21st.

Ooh.......good luck! x

Fingers crossed for you all ladies x

Good luck with your scans today ......... Let us know how they go please :-)

Fingers crossed ladies :-)

Any news Jolene?

Well my bitches have been scanned today. The one mentioned in this thread and a second one -I've never before even contemplated mating two together but we are talking toys here, and it was a question of timing -the older bitch would be too old for a last litter if left until next season, and the younger would be too old for a first! So it was now or never.

Result: The bitch whose vulva shrank back is pregnant with at least 3 puppies! Possibly even 4. The other one probably has two. :) Am SO chuffed that I am now getting a full sibling of the bitch I had to spay due to pyometra. :)

Marvellous news Goldmali. Hope cloud nine has some space for Jolene if her news is just as good.

That's brilliant news, I'm so pleased for you....... :-)

Nothing much to report here, we're on day 21/22........... Had a VERY lethargic walk this morning, very unlike her & she's looking a little sorry for herself......scan on 1st Dec!

Really pleased for you Marianne :-)

That's brilliant news, I'm so pleased for you....... :-)

Nothing much to report here, we're on day 21/22........... Had a VERY lethargic walk this morning, very unlike her & she's looking a little sorry for herself......scan on 1st Dec!

I really want a good result from my mating too. Her vulva is still a little swollen and she's been behaving differently for her, less bouncy, quieter and wanting to sleep a lot. Her appetite hasn't changed at all, she's still eager to eat all and sundry if allowed.
Can't really see any changes in her teats and no sickness either.

We are only day 14 today so still a longn way to go, scan booked beg of Dec.. Just really worried because she failed to take last time so have done a change of stud, again progesterone testing was done and also a culture was taken before mating from her to confirm no vaginal infection.

I'm desperate for her to be pregnant as been waiting on this for far too long now..

I know each bitch is different however when do you normally see signs, physical signs which make you really think they are before a scan?

Think my bitch is totally fed up with me "inspecting" her!

Mine also missed last time around, but I think it was down to poor timing.......

I know each bitch is different however when do you normally see signs, physical signs which make you really think they are before a scan?

This time it took about 3 weeks before both girls went off their food, and the younger one threw up yesterday -she is day 33 today. She also changed her character a bit. The older one (30 days today)  started eating again yesterday so I wasn't sure at all about her! My previous litter I was pretty sure from day one as the bitch changed her temperament so much, getting annoyed with other bitches etc.

I had a bitch once who was 5 weeks gone when I took her to be scanned and I was sure she wasn't pregnant yet she had 9 pups. She'd shown NO signs at all yet with her previous litter again I knew from day one as she became so annoyed with other bitches.

My male who is entire is very keen on her and she's is very grumbly with him which isn't normal and she won't are him near her stomach and won't lay out on her side or back either, she's sitting in some odd positjons

Sounds promising for both Jolene and suejaw I think. :)

>My previous litter I was pretty sure from day one as the bitch changed her temperament so much, getting annoyed with other bitches etc.

Just wondering why you think that differences a bitch would show immediately after mating could possibly be down to being pregnant? I know bitches have a much quicker pregnancy than a human but it still seems unlikely to me that bitches are so intuitive as to know that they are pregnant before any possible hormonal or physical changes. It seems much more likely to me that having mated a bitch people just watch them like a hawk and construe just about any action as a sign of pregnancy. Especially as bitches go through  the same hormonal changes whether mated oer not

Just wondering why you think that differences a bitch would show immediately after mating could possibly be down to being pregnant? I know bitches have a much quicker pregnancy than a human but it still seems unlikely to me that bitches are so intuitive as to know that they are pregnant before any possible hormonal or physical changes.

Simple -because they have been mated and they know they have been.  I would never have believed it before but in 2008 I mated my Rio for the first time, and from the day she was mated, she would not accept any other bitches anywhere near her. I had to separate her straight away from the others to avoid serious fighting. That never happened when she had a season without being mated. I asked about it here on CD at the time and Starryeyes said she had a bitch the same, and she ended up being fine once the pups were weaned, then she accepted her other bitches again. This is exactly what happened with Rio as well.

When Rio's daughter Rona was mated for the first time last December she started getting snappy with her best friend as soon as she had been mated. Again she had never been like that at any other season, only the time she was mated. It wasn't anywhere near as bad as her mum had been, but it was enough to notice the difference.

My youngest champion bitch ahs missed on her last two seasons, but has acted grumpy and pregnant so I do think perhaps having been mated they have the mindset that they are. 

She has never acted like this after seasons when not mated.

Some animals need the stimulation of mating to ovulate so I wonder whether the stimulation of mating does something that makes a bitch assume pups are on the way? 

Part of the phantom cycle but more pronounced than normally in bitches that don't do obvious phantoms.

Some animals need the stimulation of mating to ovulate so I wonder whether the stimulation of mating does something that makes a bitch assume pups are on the way? 

It's a good point. I've never had a mating NOT result in pregnancy, so don't know if the bitch would act different if mated and not pregnant. EXCEPT, of course, I have had quite a few matings with NEUTERED dogs, and then the bitch has definitely NOT changed in any way.

>It seems much more likely to me that having mated a bitch people just watch them like a hawk and construe just about any action as a sign of pregnancy. Especially as bitches go through  the same hormonal changes whether mated oer not

I had a bitch (who'd already had a litter) who missed on three successive seasons to the same dog (who was siring litters with other bitches in between) and she behaved exactly the same after mating with all of the seasons, whether she was pregnant or not. She behaved the same when mated to a different dog at the following season, and had a very nice litter. It was only palpation or scanning after 4 weeks that told me whether she'd taken or not.

A friends bitch was totally different after she came home from being mated, she had an idea then and after scanning confirmed she was pregnant.

Another friends bitch had no real signs, we went to the scan together with our girls at the time, mine wasn't and hers was.

Do you think litter size could have an impact on signs?
I've seen pictures and videos of bitches 2 weeks post mating who clearly are pregnant, nipped larger and the area around then swollen too..

Also after mating we do keep an even closer eye on them and maybe these little signs could have been there anyway and it's just wishful and hopeful thinking on our part?


Result: The bitch whose vulva shrank back is pregnant with at least 3 puppies! Possibly even 4. The other one probably has two

At the time of the scan ..........................!   Hoping all goes smoothly!

We had just the one who missed, our first, and boy was I disappointed.  I honestly can't remember how she was then, compared with how she was with the later successful two litters she had.   I just knew she wasn't likely to have taken because she sat with me on the way home (we'd left her for a couple of days with the owner of the stud dog) and SHOOK the entire way home.   Needless to say we didn't take her back (goodness knows what happened to her!) and just as well as later on we started hearing this particular dog, a recently imported (US into Canada) American Ch. had proved to be sterile.   He missed to ALL the other bitches (that we knew about!) that went to him.

we're in whelp! :-D

Excellent!

Congratulations :-))