We have had our girl mated on the 9th of june, she is a labrador. After having a failed mating last season we had a good 30 minute tie this time.

I have read everything i can possibly find on dog pregnancy and i am hoping we will have a litter.

This is our second time hoping to have pups but our first litter was 4 miniature daschunds so we saw the symptoms very easily a quickly.

So.... My girl is on day 13, her nipples have gotten longer and slightly darker, she had a milky white discharge on day 9 post breeding which change to clear on day 10, she has a massive appitite and would eat constantly but we are making sure not to over feed her. She is really clingy to the point of almost sitting on me and wants my attension constanly. I can also feel that her tummy has hardened and i can see a very slight bump when she is stood. it is quite hard when she sits and i rub her belly. When i give her a tummy rub she is very curious to what i am doing and doesn't take her eyes off my hand.

All i want to know is, do it sound promising?? i'm trying so hard to hang on till the end of the month when (if she is in whelp) we will see better signs and be able to have a scan and palp etc.
i so hope we are expecting a litter and its not a phantom!!!

Really on day 13 you cannot see any physical changes -teats for instance would normally be at least 3 weeks later if not 4, and just 9 days after mating you would not see the typical discharge either -it would more likely have been the end of the season you were seeing. You certainly wouldn't be able to see any change in body shape for another month yet. However if you know your bitch well then changes in behaviour are perfectly possible and being more clingy is a good sign I would say -I almost always can tell if my bitches are pregnant simply from the way they change their behaviour, weeks before you see physical changes.

Thank you, i thought that about the discharge too but she has never had this at the end of any of her previous seasons, she is looking and behaving alot differently to what she would normally when in season or coming to the end of.

Guess i'm going to have to wait

Could be, especially if you know your bitch well.   I tended to see mine 'come out of season' pretty soon after being mated, although one came back into a coloured discharge after two good matings, which lasted to the very end of that season.   I thought she'd never taken.   However after an uneventful pregnancy, she produced 9 super puppies.

I tended to see some thickening of the flanks, but not until about week 4.

Each is different and my best advice, as I see no point in scanning other than a need to know with an unplanned mating, is to wait and plan for a litter.   You'll see puppies moving around by about week 7 in any case.   For me, scans only confirm or not, a pregnancy at the point of scanning.   There's no guarantee a positive scan will mean a positive outcome and most often, scans aren't accurate.   If nothing happens after a couple of days beyond her due date, then I go for x-ray and treatment depending on what x-ray says.  eg. a shot and if that doesn't get things moving, C.Section.

ps    The length of a tie doesn't matter.  Breeders prefer to see a tie but one of my boys never tied his bitches but his strike rate was 99.9%

There's no guarantee a positive scan will mean a positive outcome and most often, scans aren't accurate.

But there is also absolutely NO reason NOT to scan, and if a scan shows one puppy and the bitch then doesn't get very big you know you may have a problem -if you waited you will have a dead pup and a c-section.

Also I don't think I'd ever sell many pups at all, in a breed VERY difficult to find the right homes for, if my buyers didn't know we were certain we had puppies due they'd simply go elsewhere. Keeping the buyers informed of when the bitch has come into season, when she has been mated and when she has been scanned is a big part of my puppy buyers' experience.

> Also I don't think I'd ever sell many pups at all, in a breed VERY difficult to find the right homes for, if my buyers didn't know we were certain we had puppies due they'd simply go elsewhere. Keeping the buyers informed of when the bitch has come into season, when she has been mated and when she has been scanned is a big part of my puppy buyers' experience.

and also when there are few puppies available it is much fairer to potential owners to be able to pass them onto another breeder sooner if there are no pups, they are far less likely to double book with several breeders in hopes of getting a pup, and then the breeders find they haven't got firm bookings after all.

Can I just ask, on the subject of x-rays:  Is it safe to submit unborn foetuses at a very impressionable stage in development, to radiation??

Exposing children's ovaries/testicles to radiation at any stage is even more undesirable than exposing an adult human's, so I really have never liked the idea of x-rays... I'm not sure why/how so many breeders do this?  (Ultrasounds, of course, are v safe.)

It's very strange as in the USA and many other countries they routinely x-ray for numbers a week before due date, yet rarely seem to scan???

thank you everyone,

I know everyone has a different preferance on scanning, I want to get my girl scanned so they can check pups heartbeats etc. It may also give me an idea of the size of the litter.

As mentioned above, if in the event she is in whelp but only has very few pups i would want to prepare myself and my girl incase she needs a c-section.
With this being her first litter (if she is in whelp).

I don't mind spending the money on a scan as its £30 for 2 scans, I also need to go to the vets anyway to get some nutritional advice as she isn't satisfied with her normal biscuits.

(If anyone has some good advice on this, this too would be a great help) I have read not to give her anything extra in the early weeks but i also have read about putting scramby egg or cottage cheese in her food, putting puppy food in with her biscuits or buying her pregnancy food. I am a little worried about giving her these things with them being high in calcium, as i say i don't want to over feed her.

thank you for your relpies guys!!

Exposing children's ovaries/testicles to radiation at any stage is even more undesirable than exposing an adult human's, so I really have never liked the idea of x-rays... I'm not sure why/how so many breeders do this?  (Ultrasounds, of course, are v safe.)

Indeed, I would never do it. You also have to add in the fact that it will require sedation.

(If anyone has some good advice on this, this too would be a great help) I have read not to give her anything extra in the early weeks but i also have read about putting scramby egg or cottage cheese in her food, putting puppy food in with her biscuits or buying her pregnancy food. I am a little worried about giving her these things with them being high in calcium, as i say i don't want to over feed her.

Being picky with her food is usually a very reliable pregnancy sign. I would not add extra food until 6 weeks pregnant, and never calcium until pups are born. The pickiness should go, it's a bit like morning sickness, and her appetite should improve. At such an early stage I really would not worry at all.

Personally I never give puppy food to pregnant or nursing bitches since one of mine developed such terrible diarrhoea from it that she almost died -having eaten all the afterbirths of course made it worse and we had serious problems stopping it. I now give the normal food but more meals.

I was reading a research paper a while back on the subject of xraying whilst in utero and there are suggestions (unknown whether correlation or causation) that exposure to radiation whilst in the uterus has a higher incidence of cancer developing after the puberty onset of puppies. I've been trying to locate the information for a few weeks when I was talking to a friend about it, but have been unable to locate it so far.

it's not really that she is being picky but wanting more and more and more, i've up'ed her meals to 3 a day equally spaced apart but its not enough, i'm thinking she isn't getting enough out of it, i may ask my vet to reccomened a brand or type etc.

I also am a bit funny about having an xray, this is only because i wouldn't have one myself if i was pregnant, each to their own.

Your vet is likely to advise the make of food he gets the biggest mark up from.
Sadly most vets now rely on the income from food sales.

Ahh right, thats really good to know, thank you!

I have to say when my girls have missed, they have ALWAYS had the signs "too early", earlier&stronger than when they are actually pregnant...
Hope your girl is indeed expecting but if my girls were showing what you are seeing this early, I would be thinking they have missed

I do nothing different for my pregnant girls except some Folic acid from week 2 to 6 and certainly no more food until 5-6 weeks.
At 19 days pups are the size of prawns so unlikely she would be showing so soon.

I too find, like Noora, early signs are often in missed matings. I hope this isn't the case for you.
Whatever you do don't feed a pregnant Labrador to appetite.

That is what i am worried about Noora, *sigh* I'm just going to have to wait i guess. We are just into the 3rd week so it won't be too long now.

Oh thats great advice thank you. I know what you mean with a labs appitite, they could eat for england. It's only recently that she has  even bigger hunger where she could spend all day in the kitchen next to her bowl, since yesterday her behaviour has had a shift, she was really clingy n wanting my attention but yesterday and today she is happy to be left alone going to the other side of the house to relax. I must admit I am being inpatient.

Thanks x

Don't lose hope.
I had 4 misses in the row (2 different girls)!!
So have seen the signs of misses few times in last few years & know how you must be feeling.
Now we have puppies due in a week, it was going to be our last try after all those misses.
What I had seen previously was true this time too, my girl was not showing all those over the top signs this time and is indeed expecting.

All that was different this time is I gave Herpes vaccination & used a different male (but had not used the same male for all matings anyways so doubt that caused the issues).
So don't know if the jab made the difference or just bad luck previously. All matings my girls were progesterone tested too so timing should have been spot on.
Missing bitches sadly are very common in my breed but to have that many misses on a row is still pretty impressive.

Thank you for sharing and that is brilliant news!!

I have said we may not try again after this time, last time we didnt have a tie and daisy didnt really want to co-operate, this time we had a good tie and she was more than ready, her vulva was massive and very spongey, she told me she was ready and the day after mating it was like everything had dissapeared into thin air, her bleeding even calmed a lot and stopped just a few days after, then she had a milky dicharge which changed to clear after a day and she still has it now but its gone a little stringy. The stud we used is a novice and his owner told me he has never missed on the first tie.

Her waist measures 26inches. Today I have noticed her boobies are more droopy (more on one side than the other, same with the darkness of them) and she has all of a sudden decided to take herself away from us and lay at the other end of the house or go into her pen which is over there, she looks so depressed, she also hasn't been fussing at me over food, these things are very unusual for her which is why I have a lot of hope for next week :D.

update on today (day 16)

Daisy the same but has gotten really lazy today. She has been layed down most of the day and asleep when not doing that.

Seems we have had a slight change over night.

fingers crossed!

Foodwise I would listen to the experienced breeders here rather than vets. Most vets don't have a clue about nutrition for non pregnant dogs never mind pregnant bitch.

Foodwise I would listen to the experienced breeders here rather than vets. Most vets don't have a clue about nutrition for non pregnant dogs never mind pregnant bitch.

Foodwise I would listen to the experienced breeders here rather than vets. Most vets don't have a clue about nutrition for non pregnant dogs never mind pregnant bitch.