Hi, to make it all short, i mated my bitch feb 15, 16 and 18..if counting from first stud she should be day 60 now. if counting from last stud she is day 57 now..
my question is, is she really pregnant? she has no signs at all except big rib cage since 45 days..but now the rib cage seems to get back to normal size..
she dont want to eat since this morning, she just lay down next to the bowl..and her nipples are pinkish but it might be like that even if not pregnant as she is light grey/white color..she have had litters before.
her old owner checked her 10 days ago and told me she is pregnant, and that she might have 1-3 puppies..but i thought if she was , milk should come in by now?
can she be pregnant? or is it false pregnancy? Can she still have 1-3 puppies in few days now , and produce milk afterwards?
i have another dog and she mated just few days earlier than my husky, and she has milk already but not yet lactating..and she is due any day now..my husky is digging on the cement floor in the corner but maybe she just tries to cool down..yesterday i checked her vulva and it looked like a drop of white/clear discharge..but maybe non pregnant dogs can have that as well..
its all so confusing when i thought she will have puppies and now its no signs at all, :( please help me understand better? can she have puppies still? but inside the ribcage? even tho no milk is present? there is no bump underneat the nipples so i dont think there is milk nor puppies..i tried feel her tummy but i dont feel anything..her tummy is hard only when she sit down, but standing or laying down its soft..
tia..

go to the vet and have an ex-ray!  That will answer your questions faster and more accurately than anybody on this forum can!

oh ig u only knew how much i would want to do that..but im not in uk or us..im in the philippines :/ the closest xray/scan from my place is 8hrs away with car..so a total travel time of 16hrs just for one scan is nothing i want to put her through if it turns out she is pregnant.. To much stress and way to hot in a car 8hrs going and 8hrs back.. I posted here to see if others might have been in same position or if they might know something ..

My vet is 10mins away but they only do ceasarian..not any scans or ultrasound..or else i would have gone already :/ ..

You should see puppies moving around by 7 weeks unless she's a big girl and they are up under the ribs?    I'd let her go full term, and then get her in for veterinary help.  What vet doesn't have x-ray equipment?

STOP MILKING HER.   There's no need for there to be any milk until whelping begins.   Lactation is producing milk btw. and the action of a puppy suckling, should bring the milk down then.   And probably only then.  I've had C.Sections where the milk comes once they are nursing.   Newborn puppies don't need lashings of milk in any case.

But you need to find out whether or not your b itch IS pregnant.   It is possible for them to reabsorb which might account for her looking pregnant and then not.   I had one who looked fine but after round 5 weeks, there was no increase in size, and at the end, only one puppy.  Sectioned.

she usually have 1-4 puppies so usually small litters only..she looks bigger when she lays down on her side and her rib cage seems bigger , i am not sure if i felt puppy movements or if it was her breathing or twinches, when i held my hand on the area where her ribs end and her tummy begins ..sometimes it feels like small tiny kicks and movements , but it might also just be gas bubbles or just nerve or twinches.. in philippines vet dont usually do xray or ultrasounds as not many breeders are interested in it..

so you mean that it doesnt need to be big underneath the nipples? the small bumps underneath dont need to be present? this morning she didnt want to eat at all until 4pm.. tomorrow now she will be on day 61 from first stud and day 58 from last stud..should  i count from first or last stud? .. and i read online that mucus plug is egg white stringy looking, but i have only seen white/clear discharge coming from her vulva , not much, more like 1 small drop only..or maybe every dog has that even if not pregnant..? .. thx

Please don't x-ray her:  https://www.avidog.com/how-badly-do-we-need-to-know/  If you want to check in any way, please use ultrasound.

>my question is, is she really pregnant? she has no signs at all except big rib cage since 45 days..but now the rib cage seems to get back to normal size..

No one can foresee if she is pregnant, but if she doesn't look clearly pregnant she either has a very small litter (possible) or she's not pregnant.

>she dont want to eat since this morning, she just lay down next to the bowl..and her nipples are pinkish

These can be signs of false pregnancy so not necessarily a sign she is pregnant.

>her old owner checked her 10 days ago and told me she is pregnant, and that she might have 1-3 puppies..

Unless her old owner is psychic they have no way of knowing this...

>but i thought if she was , milk should come in by now?

Milk frequently doesn't come in until whelping itself.

>can she be pregnant? or is it false pregnancy? Can she still have 1-3 puppies in few days now , and produce milk afterwards?

She could be pregnant.  She could have a false pregnancy.  She can still have a few puppies and the milk will come in then.

Basically - there's no way to tell without testing and you have no access to a vet with facilities to test, so you are just going to have to wait and see....

How many litters has she had before this one ?

thank u, just wait few more days and we will see :)

she have had 2 litters before this , if she is pregnant now then a total of 3 litters ..

she always get between 1-4 puppies, so she produce small litters only :)

update, today is day 62 from first stud and nothing yet..her old owner said she always gave birth on day 62..so i assume no pregnancy this time :) but i will still keep an eye on her in case, its still at least 6 days left for the whelping range (62-68days, sometimes 60-72) so we will see,,but as it looks like now, no puppies :)

Again, I would ignore her old owner.  Bitches bodies don't work like that. 

A bitch can mate with a male 5 days before ovulation and the semen can then live inside her for 5-7 days and fertilise the eggs.  Or a bitch may have ovulated 2 days ago, and is bred and fertilisation occurs immediately.  And then there are multiple matings, which widens the window even further.  There is a HUGE whelping window if you have not done any timing on a litter, so 'day 62' means absolutely nothing.

Of course, if she has a very small litter - like just one puppy - it may not be sufficient to trigger labour and so the pup may die inside her.  The solution to that scenario is a c-section.  That is why you would ideally be getting an ultrasound or exam at the vet's to determine if she is pregnant, so she could then receive a c-section before the placenta breaks down and is no longer able to support the pup.

i contacted my vet and she dont do ultrasound nor xray..but she do palpation, but its not 110% accurate..is it worth a try ? if so, should the dog not eat before the vet? thx

Obviously you are governed by what's available where you are but if this was my situation, I'd let mine go over by 2 days from the first mating, and then involve my vet who'd x-ray then, to see if she's empty or not.

How can any vet work without the ability to at least do x-ray???

in philippines they dont usually use any xray or ultrasound due to so many not requesting it.. i wished my vet thats more or less 10mins away from me, could offer ultrasound at least but she can only offer palpitation :/ so next time if ever i decide to try again, then i will bring her there for palpitation ..this time i dont think it took, maybe she was further ahead in her heat than i thought (she had a silent heat) .. maybe next time if ever i decide to try again :)

Do you know how she got on when she had just one puppy? Was it born naturally and alive? With single pups bitches tend to go longer, and sometimes labour doesn't start, vets say it's safe to wait (they are usually wrong!), then wait too long and once they do a caesarian there is one dead puppy. I know of 4 cases like this in my main breed. In my other breed, much smaller, I have had a bitch have just one pup, and he was born easily, in fact there were virtually no signs, he was born within minutes - again later in pregnancy. I wouldn't have believed that bitch was pregnant if it wasn't for the fact that she had been scanned.

Has the vet tried simply using a stethoscope to listen for a puppy heartbeat?

Also you said at the start that she could be 3 days less, counting from the last mating - in which case she might only be 59 days still. I wouldn't expect to see the clear discharge in a bitch that is not pregnant, and the scratching on the floor is a nesting behaviour of course. So if I was you I would play safe - give her a whelping box in a quiet area, don't leave her alone. There could be a puppy in there.

I asked the old owner and he said she always gave birth normally, never went to vet, and she have had at least 4 litters he said .. When i check her vulva it looks like white clear discharge but only 1 small drop..but maybe its nothing.. I dont want to hope yet :p .. And i asked the vet and they only do palpitation..i wanted to check for heartbeat but they dont offer that so i checked how much a stetoscope is and its cheap but i wont get it unless 5-9 days delivery :( .. So all i can do is wait and see.. The waiting is killing me haha but we will see.. If nothing then its ok :) but if she does keep digging i have no other choice than to bring her to scan 6hrs away.. I dont waNt to lose her if ever it goes that far.. This morning she didnt want to eat her food.. Yesterday she ate like her life depended on it..but now she dont want.. Maybe just not hungry :) she is day 63today from her first stud and 60days from last stud.. BUT it might be lesser than expected..like maybe she only is on day 55? I dont know when her eggs got fertilized if there now was any eggs available.. I guess just wait and see :)

so a quick update, i just checked her vulva again, slightly pressed it a little to see if any discharge comes out , and what came out is clear discharge, its not water or pee as it should have drip down, this was more like a drop of clear discharge..have anyone had a dog with clear discharges that was NOT pregnant?

I asked the old owner and he said she always gave birth normally, never went to vet, and she have had at least 4 litters he said ..

So this could be her 5th litter not 3rd ? No matter how many puppies she has produced in total, no bitch needs to have 5 litters.

Poor bitch & you are planning more litters from her. Sorry but this isn't moral or ethical

Could be her fifth but maybe 6th or 7th, who knows? She’s had at least 4 litters!!

Well if she's only had one or two pups in each litter, it's probably not a disaster to have had 4/5 litters - it's not going to have taken as much out of her as rearing a huge litter?

But what kind of vet doesn't even have a stethoscope, for goodness' sake?!?  I can understand not having an ultrasound or x-ray machine - but a stethoscope?!?! 

Finding one pup with a stethoscope if you don't know what you're looking for, isn't going to be easy anyway.  You will need to be able to differentiate the faster puppy heart from the slower maternal heart rate. 

And palpation - that's usually done much much earlier in pregnancy, I don't know if it would be recommended to do it at this time - I haven't heard of that.  You don't want to dislodge a placenta or trigger labour early etc etc.

I fear the only thing to do is to wait and see.

So just because she only has low numbers of puppies it's ok to breed the bitch annually, onetwothreefour,  through out her life ???

Jeez & some dog breeders frown on farmers for doing this when most offspring are both in 1 or 2s

It's common practice amongst reputable (in all other ways) breeders in the US, Tommee, to breed more than we do - the AKC doesn't place these restrictions and reputable US breeders have reached very different conclusions about what is acceptable.  And yes, if a bitch were having just 1-2 puppies in a litter, it doesn't take the same out of her condition as if she is having 10 in a litter...

It's a bit different with farmers (not sure what that comparison is about), since farm animals don't typically have 10 offspring.  Pigs do, but yes, if a pig had 1-2 piglets in a litter, I don't think anyone would be frowning if she were bred again a year later.

So"reputable " dog breeders, should be breeding their bitches as much as possible ?? just because it's ok in the USA the whole world should blindly follow ??  I presume AI will become the normal rather than the exception shortly & neutering pups before they are sold will be expected

Thank goodness the farming communities here in the UK, don't do the same & follow the very unsavoury American livestock keeping practices.

I am unsure why USA has been mentioned, the postee lives in the Phillipines!

Just because - what is considered acceptable varies, country by country - and even reputable breeders in first world wealthy countries (such as the US) would have no probs with breeding a year after a small litter. 

Anyway, I didn't mean to take this into some big debate but it came from the point of view of: It gets a bit boring (not to mention unhelpful for the OP) when the goal of people answering questions appears to be to attack the person asking for help - whoever they are - looking to read between the lines constantly to find ways to somehow reveal them to be a substandard breeder....We've seen what happens - the person leaves the forum.  I hope that makes everyone feel really happy, whilst CDs struggles to exist in the days of FB, to be alienating and deterring the exact people who need our help.

This person has bred their bitch, doesn't have access to veterinary help and is looking for support and advice.  How exactly is it helpful to attack them at this time for choosing to breed in a way which would be considered acceptable to many first rate breeders?  (ALbeit, clearly not all of them - but which two breeders agree on anything anyway?)

>So"reputable " dog breeders, should be breeding their bitches as much as possible ??

Please tell me exactly where I've said that.  Answer:  You can't, because I didn't.

Thank u @OneTwoThreeFour ! :) good said!
my dog is now on day 64 and no puppies , and no signs of a pregnancy, she did have enlarged nipples around day 50, but it went back to small around day 56.. her tummy went smaller as well around day 57 .. so i think she might have been pregnant but reabsorbed the puppies? OR a phantom pregnancy..or she might have 1 inside? its clear discharge from her vulva when pressing lightly to see if something comes out..but thats about it .. just need to wait and see for few more days :)

Well, we still don't know - if she had 2 matings, she might not have taken until the second.  So until you're outside of your whelping window totally, you don't know.

I'm also not sure what happens if the puppy dies inside her because labour doesn't start - she will presumably deliver it stillborn, I'm not sure she can resorb fully calcified puppies.

> its clear discharge from her vulva when pressing lightly to see if something comes out

I'm not happy with the constant pressing of the vulva.  It just isn't necessary, and can be distressing for the bitch.

update,,day 66 from first stud and day 63 from last stud, no signs yet, small nipples, vulva, she seems normal to me..her rib cage looks little bigger but that might just be because her fur grew a lot more on raw? im suspecting not pregnant :) ..