Im devastated.

Took my girl tonight for scan. She was panting like crazy cause she hates the vets.. She scanned her a while which was difficult & said there's nothing. Then got in a younger vet who said no nothing... They've said to return next Monday to be sure. I'm so shocked. I truly thought she was. Her symptoms are all there & so obvious.

> Her symptoms are all there & so obvious.

With a negative scan, she must be experiencing a phantom/false pregnancy

Does the signs of a phantom progress like a normal pregnancy would?

Some can get ill with phantoms & if this is what she has, it needs 'clearing up'/treated to get her back to normal.
Each bitch can vary on degrees & some do all the nesting/mumsy things ie mothering toys thinking they are her pups. Milk is fairly often produced & needs treatment to supress/stop.

How god are your vets at scanning and how long since her last mating.  many are nto good at finding anything until 35+ days

the fact she was not happy would make it more difficult too.

Whatever you do, do not treat a bitch that has been mated with Galastop (used for drying bitches up) as it can cause abortion in pregnant bitches.

A fellow breeder was taking a litter from a bitch she bred as owners did nto ahvwe tiem or facilities.  She was sent home with her owners to Jersey as not being in whelp. 

As she developed milk and a phantom was diagnosed, she was Given Galastop.

She then went on to her due date and started whelping, one pup was lost but 5 survived, but of course the bitch had no milk. 

Fortunately she was maternal, cleaned and cared for them, and the pups had to be hand reared for over a week when eventually with al the suckling the bitch got milk.

The bitches breeder had to fly to jersey and then get a private flight to fly herself the bitch and litter home to rear, as the bitches owners had to return to work.

This is my 1st experience with my vets & scanning so I'm not sure how good they are at it. The other younger vet came in not pleased scanned her briefly & said nope nothing & left. I've to return next Monday.

She would be 35 days now.

She's widened, eating constantly, looks fatter, stomach is hard, tissues hardening under nipples, and still has the clear stretchy discharge.

Could be a small litter.
I would bide my time, take her back for a repeat scan as arranged.
In my large breed it can be difficult to see anything before 28 - 30 days and then it s nearly impossible to give any idea of numbers.
Fingers crossed for you.
Aileen

Keeping my fingers crossed for you.

My advice has been given on a negative scan, if there is doubt you need to wait for a bit longer.....which looks like your thinking of having another scan??

Yes next monday. Another week of limbo

Many people have had a negative scan, and their bitch has gone on to whelp, even quite large litters.  Whatever you do, don't give her anything to dry up her milk.  Even if this turns out to be a phantom, there are far better ways of drying up milk.  I have never used Galastop, and I've had plenty of bitches having a phantom, and producing milk.

I have a 5 week old litter. Not missed on a matting for several litters.
When I went this time, my vet was ages and then said no puppies. As we were discussing my surprise/ no shock,  at a miss, he said what is that. He then found 3 and she went on to have 5! I'd wait and see.

Thanks guys. I won't do anything and wait till next Monday.

Just thought the stretchy clear discharge wasn't part of a phantom. So frustrating.

Do you have any pet scan people that work in your area? I have never used my vet to scan my bitch but always used a lady who specialises in this. For three litters she has been bang on for the due date and numbers, she's been scanning for 20 years + and I know will travel but you have to pay her fuel costs.Luckily she's only 40 minutes drive away from me so I go to her house.
The impression I've got from my vets when I went with a friend to have her bitch scanned is they will confirm pregnancy but that's it, no numbers or due date.

Hi all

I have had a similar experience we took our girl to stud, stud owner was very happy with mating (even sent us a video). week 10 days later nipples started getting bigger so we thought she had taken. We then took her to our vets to discover nothing!! i was so down.

The stud owner come to scan for himself as he was amazed at the fact she had not taken but the scan still shown no pups!!

It does happen it has happened twice with me before, it goes to show in the previous comment how useless some vets are that they cannot even  scan properly.

Vets are notoriously poor at pregnancy diagnosis via US scanning. You cant beat a good and experienced ultrsonographer.
Last vet scan I had done...trial run to see if they were any good.....they missed SIX big bonnie babies! and I KNEW she was pregnant.

Thanks guys.

There's a scanner but they lives 200 miles away. That's the closest. See what Monday brings but not holding my breath xx

What part of the country are you in?  Somebody may be able to suggest a nearer more reliable scanner for you?  Just a thought...

North of Scotland. X

> North of Scotland. X

Ah!! Possibly more difficult!  I see your problem...  hopefully you will get more positive news from your vet next week then.

We had three beautiful bitch pups after a negative scan last year!

Jo

How far along was your girl Jo?

28days  when we scanned her - vet scan......;-)  Going to Sam Wilkinson next time.

Jo

This is so sad! My girl is still progressing with her false pregnancy. Her teats are changing and you can feel the tissues all hardening under them. She's just thrown up twice.. Bellies getting rounder. Uh... Why does this happen. Still 3/4 wks to go until it passes.

It's heart breaking when you get a negative scan, had two now with the same bitch :-(

Continue to treat this bitch as pregnant...just in case. Ive not got a lot of faith in vet scans.

Me either - which is why I simply didn't bother.   Even if I was told no, I'd still be 'expecting' up to the time my bitch was due!!    And even with a pos.scan, that's only a yes, at the time of the scan.   Not a guarantee she'll carry to term.

If mine went into a false pregnancy situation, that didn't usually happen until after the due date, when she'd have been nursing a litter.   Not that we had that many falsies.

Vet saying again no pups..

Asked about the phantom his reply... Guess she is yeah. Then ushered me out the room. It's the only vet in my town. God only knows how I asked them about ovulation tests next season. They are very rude & anti breeding. Which I understand but it's not like I'm some puppy farm or irresponsible breeder in the making. No support at all.

They are very rude & anti breeding.

I had a vet like that once -needless to say he's no longer my vet. As a breeder you do need a supportive and experienced vet. Is there no nearby towns that have vets that might be better? Do you know people from showing, training classes, ringcraft, your breed club, perhaps SKC itself?, anything similar, that might be able to recommend a good vet?  I understand your problem with where you live though which is why I am wondering if you need to look further afield for a vet.

many people use more than one Vet, one local that they can get to quickly if need arises but other practices for more specialist support like breeding, health schemes etc.

I have 4 vets!! for the simple reason each one is good in certain areas, but another thing i find frustrating with vets is you cannot get to see the same vet on a regular basis at one practice.

That's why I use a lone practitioner, (who treats me like an intelligent knowledgeable owner/breeder)and will always see him except for Friday, Saturday morning or if he is on holiday.

Unfortunately he uses Vets now for after hours, which costs a fortune just to walk through the door.

So when Pets at home started hosting  companion Care Vets, I used the nearest one (closer than the emergency cover, which they use too) for their special offer on vaccinations on opening, liked what I found, (main vet and I had a long chat and he knew what sort of owner he was dealing with)  so used them for a bitch spay.

Beauty is they are Open 7 days a week, Bank Holidays, basically the shop hours, so more flexibility in early out of hours.

This was a Godsend when Jozi was PTS on Good Friday.

Sadly it's virtually impossble to find a single-vet practice in the UK these days.   The previous one I used down here had 3, at the practice I used (they had 3 practices!), one specialising in eyes, another in skin and the third running her 'alternative medicine' ideas alongside conventional medicine.    The one I moved on to last year has at least 5, and only now have I started to see the same vet twice!!   If I had a real problem, I'd make sure I got the one I felt most comfortable with however.  The one good thing about this new lot is I've not been seen by a vet, yet, that I've not felt comfortable with.

We had a single vet practice that did his own out of hours, and he was AWFUL. I could write a book about just what a horrendous experience it was. So there's no guarantees. We were literally lured in with promises of "we have lots of breeders and breeders get a discount and we are the cheapest in the area anyway" and then it turned out he was very anti breeding and not at all cheap either. Moved to a practice that usually has 4 or 5 vets (it varies) but we find that if it is anything important, there is no problem simply asking for one of our favourite vets.

We stayed loyal to the vet that the Police used when walking police puppies.  We have had great service and Ooh care for our dogs. We have swallowed the escalating rise in vet fees lately and we try always to see the same vet. We did try petsathome vets for our poorly cat on a Sunday, given old fashioned tablet variety antibiotics(won't eat them), didn't seem bothered too much about the hole in his ear. On the Tuesday we took him to our vets they gave antibiotics injection, painkillers and a good clean and suture of ear! Not sure I'd take my dog/cats back despite a new vets for pets surgery opening near us.

Can't help thinking how lucky we have been with our vet, who is fab. She clearly loves animals and was so caring when we had our old girl pts. The receptionists are great too, I had to take dog 1 in recently with cystitis and when I called them I was told to take her straight in and someone will see her (she was peeing blood). We even took a koi carp in once!
However they don't do pet passport so we have to use a different vet for that. Swings and roundabouts.

If you find a gem apart from letting me know where HANG ONTO HIM/HER!!   They are obviously a dying breed.   I had one such gem out in Canada and would that I could have brought him back with us, and then after a total disaster, another we should have gone to first after coming back to the UK, but who we stuck with for 13+ years before moving to the other side of the country.   She has now retired.