Am I right that, when working out what 'Day" of pregnancy your girl is on, you should count the day of fertilisation as Day 1?  Or is it the day of ovulation??  (Which is usually 2-3 days before fertilisation?).

Please tell me what you would take as Day 1, in my scenario...

Mon 18th April - Progesterone test was 4.9nmol (almost LH surge, so 48hrs to ovulation - probably)
Tues 19th April - 1st mating
Weds 20th April - ovulation??? [unconfirmed]
Fri 22nd April - 2nd mating and eggs ripe for fertilisation [?]

Where, in all this, do I place Day 1?  (So I can work out where I am now, and due date!)

If Day 1 is fertilisation, then that was probably Fri 22nd - meaning today is Day 14 and due date is Fri 24th June...?  Is that right?  Or should I be calculating from ovulation? 

Due to progesterone testing, we know ovulation was not before Weds 20th April for almost sure.

With horses its day of mating  but with dogs am not sure best ask stud owner or vet
good luck

I think I've worked out that it's 63 days from date of ovulation, so if I think that's Weds 20th April (earliest), then should be due Weds 22nd June...(earliest)?

Its roughly 63 days from conception not ovulation. So count 63 days from first mating and the same from second and that's your rough due dates

Royal canin and also Debbie Jensen websites are good for info on pregnancy and also have a chart which tell you due dates

"Gestation in a dog is 63 days in length, if measured from the day of ovulation." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canine_reproduction

Due 21st to 24 June

When will you know rabid?

If she's pregnant, you mean?  When she starts to show, probably 4-5 weeks (22nd May ish). 

We could do a scan, but where I live there aren't any of the non-vet kind who come to your house, so it would be a vet trip and a shaved stomach and I don't want to put her through that. 

Plus it looks like the scan you can do around Day 28, but you can usually see by Day 35 anyway, so for the sake of 7 days, it doesn't seem worth the stress for her. 

I hate this time when I don't know if we have poopies or not.  Leetle poopie scoopies, are you in there?!!?!?

I seems like yesterday that I was totally convinced that the mating just wasn't going to happen!  I had even called the specialist (andrology) at the University Animal Hospital in Zurich. 

Well, and now Nimue's five beautiful puppies turned two weeks old today! 

Yes, I too couldn't imagine the mating actually happening.  I've owned intact bitches for years and never had a close shave during a season - and not bred before - so it seemed incredible to me that the mating would happen...

And then we got two, with 20min ties

Was this then the very first time you ever bred a female?  If so, I had not realised that.  And if so, no WONDER you were nervous!  And if so, this will be your very first birth?  Or am I wrong, and you are an experienced breeder?

The length of the tie doesn't seem to have much significance.  My male (Robin) has terrific aim, and when he decides that he is DEFINITELY GOING TO GO FOR IT, he manages every time.  I'm standing there (usually watching through the window, while they do their flirting thing in the garden), and the minute they tie, I very cooly and nonchalantly RUSH out there to just calm them and be sure that the female remains quiet and doesn't try to pull away.  OK, so Robin is then really happy, and then he quickly gets bored. 
He says to me, "Mama, I think this has been long enough, so I guess I'll be off now and go relax."  Except he can't.   So I explain this, and he accepts his tethered status with fortitude.  He just tries a bit every now and then to see if he can now depart.  And then, after around 12 minutes, that was it!  Over and done with, very practical, especially if it is raining, or if, as a year ago in February, there is a stiff wind out of the north and temperatures well below freezing.

http://www.welshcorgi.com/lists/archive16.html

Good morning!  I've just come across this very long treatise, written by a DVM who breeds corgis.  When you have the time to sit quietly, take your coffee with you and read through it.  It's very informative.

Again the more 'science' gets involved, the more complicated it seems to get!!    Fact is I counted from the first mating and, any other worrying signs apart, let it go a couple of days beyond and if nothing happened, get a vet involved.   'Science' is all very well, provided those using said aids know what they are doing!!

Reading all this, sometimes I wonder how any bitch managed to have puppies in the past!!  

Thanks Nimue! Yes, it's our first breeding with her and our first litter.

Complicated MamaBas?? It's actually far simpler. By progesterone testing, I know she was not ovulating until Weds 20th. That means I don't need to include the earlier due dates at all and will be much more relaxed if she goes into the later dates.

If it wasn't complicated - surely questions like this wouldn't need to be asked!!!  

Hope every thing goes well.and happy heathly mum and babies
i am with mamabas on.this their far to much science etc involved in breding theis days
esp in horse breding and dogs
when people first started breding they got on with it with no science etc
as one of our clients said the mare should have bit of nocky ie fun with stallion
now its all tests utrise flushed .ai.embroy transfer etc scaning yes its good their all modern tech avible etc yes it was nice to get scan of 75day old foal fetus yes one of my mares had lot issues getin in foal the vet and stud owner were fab and got my mare in foal but she sadly died 4mnts away from foaling
yes new vet science amazing
yes is bloody nerve wraking time having first litter or foal
but what happend to good old matting with out science .tests.etc etc
i wish

Again the more 'science' gets involved, the more complicated it seems to get!!    Fact is I counted from the first mating and, any other worrying signs apart, let it go a couple of days beyond and if nothing happened, get a vet involved.   'Science' is all very well, provided those using said aids know what they are doing!!

I must admit:  I'm with you on that! 

I have found in my very limited experience that vets (even those that are pro breeding) get very shirty with you when you give them an approximate due date. The response I got was - 'why didn't you blood test? How can you be sure of the dates at all if you don't know whether she ovulated before or after mating?' I did say that I happen to own a seasoned stud dog who indicated the correct mating times before I took my girl to the stud and that she had had 3 matings - 1 slip and 2 ties. But the chap was very off hand and made me feel like I was a BYB simply because I prefer to do things the old fashioned way.

I only scan because I do not want to start upping food etc and would prefer to go back to my normal routine sooner rather than later.

There are some things that are much better now with modern science - the vaccine available for CHV, the studies to aid pups with fading puppy syndrome, scanning etc but I do think vets seem to think you MUST do testing, MUST have the bitch scanned with them and you MUST use all modern practices available.

I do prefer the simpler ways but I understand why horses and other large animals are artificially inseminated. I think I read somewhere (a long time ago) where a prize racing stallion had to be gelded after he was kicked by a mare he was supposed to be covering resulting in hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of losses to the syndicate owners and the owners of other mares on their stud books.

I don't think anyone should judge other people, if they decide to make use of the science that is available in getting a successful mating - I also don't think vets (or anyone) should judge those who decide not to make use of it....

No one is forcing anyone to make use of the science or medical advances, so if you don't want to use it - don't.  Equally, please don't judge others who do.

I'd be asking the same question whether I'd progesterone tested or not - in fact, the question would be even more complicated because there would be an even broader range of due dates.

It just gets a little boring when the same subject is brought up all the time, even when it has nothing to do with the question asked...

I think if you have good vet and one you can speak to and both of you work together
i have fab horse vet we work together and talk throw issues
my dad and papa farriers they found my vet same they are work.together to ssort lamness
yes morden issues are great i do find ai .embroy transfer scaning so intresting

Best thing is to find vet that you can speak to and will work.with you

rabid i wish you all all best hope you.get some lovely pupies
yes breeding so nerve wracking but worth all worry etc when you have lovely fit healthy litter and happy mum
i was nerved wreak with my first foal but its worth it

I just hope your girl is pregnant....poor love with all this stress coming off of her Mum...I'm a great believer in letting nature take it's course. My medium sized bitch has whelped a litter of 9 and one of 12, about double the breed average. No testing before hand. Had my scan lady tell me when pups would be due, she's been bang on each time, and I was very calm about the whole thing. I don't know if that's because I've had 4 children, again with no fuss and didn't go to my doctors about my last pregnancy until I was 6 months gone. Pregnancy is a natural thing, I too believe that sometimes we expect too much now. Just relax, find out if she's in whelp and then start looking at dates. nature will win every time...

I'm not stressed really (not sure why people keep thinking I am?!), I'm just very excited - and can't wait.  I was stressed about getting the timing right for the mating, due to the distance involved in travel - but at this point, I'm quite calm.

If our stud dog had been local (or even up to 2-3 hrs drive away), I would not have tested.  But when you're spending £350 on a ferry, plus £179 on accommodation, you really want to make sure you get the timing right and don't have a miss.  There's no such thing as a 'free return' when it cost you about £500 to get there in the first place.

Too much time on your hands lol. My husband would have given up on me by now if I'd lived/breathed puppies all the time...

Looking forward to updates rabid please post when your girl had pups
good luck

That's a fair few weeks away groveclydpoint... So much more to discuss before then...

No one here is judging anyone rabid. I certainly wasn't judging your choice, I was just responding to mamabas' and nimue's comments about science complicating things and how 3 vets I spoke to had made me feel with regards to options available through science vs the old ways.

I'm sorry if you feel the posts went off topic and in answer to your original question - 63 days post mating.

> <br />Reading all this, sometimes I wonder how any bitch managed to have puppies in the past!

     

> I did say that I happen to own a seasoned stud dog who indicated the correct mating times before I took my girl to the stud and that she had had 3 matings

Has always been my way as well.  My boy was an expert, why would I argue with him?  He was right every time and saved me a wasted journey to my chosen stud.

Gsdowner, I didn't mean you with that!

Anyway, now I do have a problem to post about instead of imagine...

Our 11.5yo dog has one of her occasional giardia episodes. Well, I say giardia - once we did a poo sample many years ago and it came back as giardia, so us and our vet have always treated it as such because she gets the same thing every couple of years or so. It was more frequent when she was a pup. The theory is that she always has it and when her immune system is down, it takes over. (Rather than that she repeatedly reinfects herself. Since our other dog has only once had it & they are both walked in the same places.)

Out vet gave us metronidazole for it years ago and since then, well after the first 3-4 episodes of it, we would just phone up and he'd leave it at reception for us to pick up.

So now:  Before we mated our 2yo girl, this dog got her same symptoms again. So we put her on a 5 day course of metronidazole as usual. We just used some we had left from her previous episodes. All was fine on the med and for about 5 days after, then it came back again. This has happened once before and the vet advised to do a longer 10 day course. So that's what we did this time. Again, all was fine for the 10 days on the metronidazole and now she's been off it 3 days and it seems to be back again.

All this would be happening over a bank hol weekend....

I have some Panacur here and I've just put her on that for a 5 day giardia course. In the past, Panacur hasn't worked. But if Panacur doesn't work now and the giardia is resistant to metronidazole then I've no idea what we do.

I will see how the Panacur does and take her to the vet on Tuesday if it's no better.

But of course I'm really worried that our pregnant (hopefully) girl is going to get it. Because we can't give her meds. I guess I can take her out to a field to toilet but they still share water bowls, pick up toys etc.

I will also post this in the Health forum but if anyone has tips....

It's 63+/-1day from ovulation, that they are likely to whelp. Tradionally you count from first mating, and the variation in whelping is normally because of earlier or later mating than ovulation day.

No Sue it has been found that bitchrs quite consistently whelp 63 days from ovulation with + or - s day.

I have no idea why but I have woken up today, convinced that my girl has missed again.....her foof is shrinking down again, although nipples are pink - not sure how much difference there is from normal, no thinning of tummy hair, no clear discharge, no morning sickness and no loss of appetite....  :(

Only positives are that she is overly clingy for affection, begging for food and sleeping in strange places instead of her usual spot under the dining table though none of these are clear indicators (plus something they all seem yo do here after mating). Don't think I can bare the disappointment yet again come scan time on thursday

Oh, I can really relate to that - and mine hasn't missed previously... Fingers crossed for Thursday, but even if it doesn't find anything, keep some hope going... the scanner might miss them?

But really (according to my Bibles, I mean, books), there are not many reliable indicators this early on and many bitches just don't show any change at all.  I'm sure you know that though??

My girl is roundabout Day 19 now and I haven't noticed much of a difference either.  She does seem more sleepy during the day and doesn't want to roughhouse with one of our other dogs so much.  She has a couple of times, but previously it would be almost every night they did.

We did have the white discharge about a week ago, but I haven't seen any since and it was a tiny tiny amount which was just sitting on her vulva, not even dropping out.  I can see absolutely nothing else any different.  And I'm looking very closely.  Not much change in nipples.  I can't tell if her swelling has gone totally back down, because I can't really remember exactly what it's usually like...

I am forgetting about it all and just focussing on fixing my older dog's giardia problem and keeping everything as clean and disinfected as I can, at the moment.

I have no idea why but I have woken up today, convinced that my girl has missed again.....her foof is shrinking down again, although nipples are pink - not sure how much difference there is from normal, no thinning of tummy hair, no clear discharge, no morning sickness and no loss of appetite....  :(

How many days? I've got a bitch very similar size to your breed (i.e. mine is large for her breed) and she is on day 41 today. Can't say her vulva is huge at all, her appetite is normal, she's not been sick at all, certainly no thinning of fur on her stomach yet -but her teats have been larger since about 4 weeks and she's now VERY visibly pregnant. But then we do know there are at least 12 pups in there........ (Scanned day 32.)

We are only at 26 days Goldmali and I know it's too soon to tell. But you know that chilled feeling you get around your heart when something isn't right? I got up yesterday and as I walked past her to go to the bathroom, my heart chilled, there was a slowing of my heartbeats and tightening in the chest. I felt dreadful and the feeling just crept through me :(

To be fair my other girl didn't lose any appetite or have any discharge. I can't really explain why I feel this way - perhaps it is down to multiple misses and failure in getting this particular girl in whelp since she came to me. Maybe life is turning me in to a 'glass half empty' type of gal...

Scan is booked for Thursday.

I think you've just very worried and trying to prepare yourself for the worst, so it doesn't hit you so hard IF it happens. 

But there's no real evidence yet, so keep the faith!

Thanks rabid...really trying to stay positive...on a plus note, she has left a third of her breakfast today. Might be nothing but a little smile on my face.

  Probably the only time any owner will ever be pleased to see their dog doesn't have an appetite! 

What day are you on at the moment?  You're ahead of me, I think by a week??

We are on day 26 rabid. I know you are a little behind but it has been nice having someone else who is in a similar boat to myself to share the questions and experiences with :)

She has just wolfed down two hot dog sausages. Not counting any chickens yet as the heat usually stops my breed from eating. But then again, the other 3 ate theirs... oh the torture!

We are Day 20, so 6 days behind.  Doesn't sound like much, 6 days, does it?!!? 

I think our girl's nipples and foofoo might be slightly enlarged.  However, this may also just be wishful thinking so I'm not really letting myself believe it. 

No lack of appetite, but then as a certain large working gundog breed ;)  I would probably rush her to the vet if she had no appetite, so I'm not really expecting that one(!).

I'm very jealous you are having a scan and will know for sure this week though!!!

I think our girl's nipples and foofoo might be slightly enlarged.

Hi Rabid.  I just want to tell you that with my females (ALL of them), the nipples make a very definite change (impossible to overlook!)
at about 28 days.  Not before.  Then I rejoice, knowing that YES!  She IS!

I am keeping everything crossed. I think if she fails this time, we only really have one more chance with her as I don't want to put myself through continuous disappointment with her. But trying not to think that way. Fingers, toes, plaits, brows, legs, you name it - everything crossed...

I can't believe she would miss 3 times in a row unless there is some undiagnosed problem going on, so I am also keeping everything crossed!!!

That's good to know about the nipples, Nimue!  I will try not to look at them again until Day 28, so I can really appreciate if they've changed!

She absorbed the first time and missed 3 times since. She has had one successful litter before she came to me so the vet doesn't feel it's reproductive issues. I have changed the stud dog and although she missed to him last time, I blame the repro sticks as the lady was vague with the interpretation. We finally went at day 17 but even I knew she had gone over by then because she starts to smell 'ripe'.

This time I had her swabbed and we had 1 extremely good tie and 1 ok one. The stud dog is proven and actually sired a litter being born as we speak! I do feel my other bitch may be the cause but again no one can help me on that particular matter so...ho hum.

Eyes!  GSD owner ill cross these for luck too. Sending positive vibes for a positive result.

Thanks hun, will remember to cross those too :) seriously - if positive vibes work I'm sure we'd all be successful just through everyone's best wishes!

Love how everyone unites with the 'vibes'

I'll go one better still:  I'll do what they do here where I live, I'll HOLD MY THUMBS! 

I know that one! Thanks for the smiles guys.

That's good to know about the nipples, Nimue!  I will try not to look at them again until Day 28, so I can really appreciate if they've changed!

Please let me know!