We have been told by our vet that our 6 year old Springer Spaniel is having a phantom pregnancy. For the last 5 days she has been panting alot,clingy & crying alot & been carrying one of her toys around constantly. We were unaware of her last season, although we also have a cocker spaniel who was in season in December & usually they come in together. We have never experienced this before in either dog & therefore wondered if anyone could give advise as to how long this normally lasts & if theres anything we can give her, the vet has given us something to put in to her food to prevent her from making milk but given us no other advise. She has never been mated & we are reluctant to have her spayed.

If your vet has told you that it's a phantom then this means that she would have had a season and you must have missed it.Are you 100% sure that a dog could not have got to her??Although it can happen that a phantom will occur without a season it is unusual.Did your vet not offer a course of hormone tablets or is this what you have to put in her food??When would her last season have occured could she not be pregnant??
Lots of questions I know!!
Unfortunately Bitches that have phantoms often go on to have another ,in which case having her spayed maybe your only option.
In extreme cases a bitch will take a phantom right up to the end ,panting and straining as if in labour.This would be about right for your Dec season as it's about 9 weeks if it was at the beginning

Poor girl, she must be feeling really miserable :( The bestthing to do for her is keep her busy - take her about with you, take her for lots of walks, etc. Don't give her time to sit and mope and feel sorry for herself and she'll get over it a lot quicker. And try not to let her get attached to toys as "surrogate pups". They take a lot longer to recover if this happens.

I'm told all bitches have phantoms to a greater or lesser extent after seasons (especially wild dog packs where the unmated bitches will act as nannies to the other pups), but when they have full-blown ones like this they tend to have them badly every time, and in that case spaying will be the only sure cure :(

Hope she recovers soon.

Thankyou both for your advice, I managed to hide her toy last night & after a few dirty looks she carried on as normal & by the end of the evening she seemed pretty much her old self. The stuff the vet gave us was Galastop(?) I presume this is hormone based? Anyway thanks again, hopefully I shall have alot less fretful weekend.