Hi,

I'm fairly new here so I hope I am posting in the right place, apologies if not.

My lab bitch had her first tie on 7th Feb, then again on 9th Feb (this would be her first litter). Both times lasted approx 20-25 minutes. The stud dog is well proven and his owner was quite happy that everything had gone well.

On the advice of my vet, she was taken for an ultrasound last week on what would have been day 30 since the first tie. My girl was quite anxious and we couldn't get her to stand still and eventually got her on her back and had to hold her (still wriggling) The vet concluded that there was nothing there and she is not pregnant and adamant that she is never wrong (this is the first time I have ever been to this vets) My girl is showing some symptoms such as her teats pinking up, loss of appetite, very lethargic and much more affectionate than usual. She has also had some clear discharge too. A breeder friend is of the opinion that this is too early for the scan and she would generally wait until 5/6 weeks.

My question is, is she just having a phantom pregnancy? Or is there a possibility the ultrasound was wrong and she may indeed be pregnant?

If you are not confident in your vet, which it sounds as though you are not, could you arrange for her to have a second scan using a trusted scanner?
Alternately, wait and see what happens :-) If she is pregnant you may be able to feel them in a couple of weeks.

Stormy81, it is very important NOT to put a pregnant bitch through any unnecessary stress whatsoever.  Having lost litters due to stress myself (they have been reabsorbed) I would not see a pregnant bitch held down and struggling and as soon as it became clear that she was uncomfortable with what was happening, I would step in and put a stop to it.  You are your dog's advocate and protector.  You have more authority and power than the vet, who you are employing.

You need to get your relationship with your vet under control from the start.  Vets are not repro experts, their ability to read ultrasounds is not great (unless they are repro specialists or do have a lot of experience) and with an animal moving about all the time, it would be nigh on impossible to determine anything. 

What you have done, is put your bitch through a lot of stress which, by itself, can cause the loss of a litter.  If she isn't pregnant now, was the vet right and she was never pregnant?  Or did she absorb the litter due to stress?  You will never know. 

Furthermore, pups in utero are exposed to all the hormones which the pregnant bitch is exposed to and stressful events occurring to the mother whilst pregnant can have a lasting and damaging effect on her puppies - being flooded with cortisol and adrenaline, is preparing those puppy brains to be similarly responsive when born. 

Equally, taking a pregnant dog to the vets for any non-essential appointment should only be done with extreme caution, due to disease risk.  The vet's is where every sick dog goes.... It is not a place to be taking a pregnant bitch who, if she catches many things she could be exposed to there, will be unable to go on the necessary antibiotics without causing damage to the unborn puppies. 

If you have a bitch which has been trained to lie on her back when asked and to hold still, using positive reinforcement based methods, then the best time to ultrasound is Day 30 FROM OVULATION.  If you don't know when ovulation occurred because you weren't progesterone testing, then you don't really know what 'day' you are on, exactly, at the moment.  She could have conceived 5 days after your 2nd mating.  Day 30 from the first tie is just a random stab in the dark at the right date.  She could be as much as a week or more behind that date.

Clear discharge is an excellent pregnancy sign and so are several of the other signs you mention.   

If you are new to whelping and raising a litter, please do not take your vet's advice (alone) for almost anything - seek out experienced mentors.  If not available in person, find them online, in Facebook groups with experienced breeders' in, or here on CDs.

Hi onetwothreefour, thank you for taking the time to reply.  It was me who put a stop to the appointment and I wasn't happy about my girl getting so worked up, the vet asked me if I could get her to lie on her back, which she will usually do quite happily as she loves a good tummy rub, but as soon as she tried to scan her she started wriggling, when I was told that I should hold her down tighter I said it was time just to stop as she wasn't happy.

What struck me was that the vet never asked anything about my girl, her health or anything at all, other than how long since she had been mated and she didn't examine her (we were in and out in less than 5 minutes) She literally brought us in and went right into scanning. As I said this is a new practice as my other one has recently closed and I just didn't feel good about the whole experience despite being told to come back in a week I was reluctant to take her back. So thank you for your advice, I thought I was maybe being overly anxious.

I am new to whelping and my main concern is the health and wellbeing of my girl (hence the reason I took the vets advice) My friend, who is a very experienced breeder has told me much the same as you have.

I will keep an eye on her for now and see how she goes.

Scanning is really only as reliable as the person driving it!  I.e.  If you use an experienced, dedicated canine scanner, they are usuallly pretty accurate and knowledgeable.  The one I use doesn’t put the bitch on her back either.  Just shaves a bit and does it while she is standing.  So, minimal stress for the bitch.

It does sound like your bitch has all the signs of pregnancy, so as the previous poster has suggested, you could either wait it out, or get another scan done from a reputable scanner in your area.

I always scan from 28 days after OVULATION, as this is the best time to get a count.  Late scans confirm pregnancy, but it is more difficult to see numbers. 

Good luck.  And please let us know what the outcome is. :)

It is more reliable to scan the bitch lying on her back, but you have to weigh that up with how much more vulnerable and scared she may feel in that position if not used to it.

Phew, I'm glad you stopped things before she continued to get stressed.

I would really take time now to find a vet practice (or a different vet at the same practice?) that you feel comfortable with.  You may need their help again at some point (ie around whelping) and you need to be sure you trust them and that they can also factor in stress and emotional/psychological factors for the bitch and not just physical stuff. 

Can you speak to other people who breed in your area and get some recommendations for vets?  Or maybe other CD members on here can recommend a vet practice in your area if you share roughly where you are.

I have to say there are no experienced repro vets where I live, so I've had to read up, speak to other breeders and learn a lot myself, and then know what to 'ask for' and when I don't need to contact them - otherwise I would hate to think about the invasive things I'd end up doing to my dog.

I have, again!, never bothered with scanning.   I was in the happy position of not needing to have a pregnancy confirmed, as once I mated my girls, my schedule was clear up to, and beyond, whelping.   By week 7 it was usually 'obvious' in any case much as I had one who went to week 5, increasing etc., but after that worryingly didn't get any bigger.   I thought I detected movement by week 7.   In the event, she had just one puppy.

Scanning accuracy would depend on who was doing the scanning - but again, only confirms a pregnancy, or not, at the time of the scan.   As I believe was the case with my singleton 'litter', she most probably reabsorbed all but the survivor.

As has been said, to stress a bitch to the point your poor girl was, is pointless.   And again for me, unless the scan is done at home, there's always the risk of infection when taking her to the vet's office.    Supported by the fact that I had to take my Whippet in on Wednesday last week for a corn hull and on Saturday morning, she produced the most awful diarrhoea!   Thankfully that only lasted a day.   Did she pick that up from the vet's office?

Having sheep I find ultrasound scanning essential & Sheep scanners are far more experienced than your average vet, they can do thousands of scans in a year. It is a very useful tool for shepherds

We had our lab scanned a week or two ago at around 5 weeks post mating, I used a private scanner rather than the vets, he was great with her, won't scan anything less than 35 days and was happy to scan with her standing up as thats what she was happy doing :)

I just had my bitch scanned today, and the very experienced scanner told me she was 30 days post-ovulation.  (I knew this already from progesterone testing).  She is very good and scans the bitch standing up.  All done in 2 minutes.

To those recent scanners, can I ask what you would have done had the scan not shown a pregnancy?   Gone back to work /other normal life leaving the bitch alone around the time she 'would' have whelped?   If this was me, apart from not seeing anything moving from week 7, I'd STILL be there once the bitch had gone full term, just in case .............. 

I think that depends not only on how much you trust your scanner, but the breed you have etc.  I never leave my bitch’s alone anyway, so there would be no danger there.  I have had bitch’s scanned empty.  One that had conceived, but she could see hadn’t ‘taken’. so there were ‘sites’ there, but no pups.  The scanner warned me that a pyo may follow this, and sadly that is exactly what did happen some months later.  Another bitch hadn’t conceived at all.  You do still ‘hope’ I guess!  But I know this scanner is very experienced, so I do trust her.

When our girl was scanned empty we went back a week later and got another empty. We didn't increase her food as she would have been obese if not pregnant and as the scanner lady has a good rep of being quite accurate, didn't book time off.  she went on to have a phantom so before giving her galastop we waited untill the time when u can xray and had one done to confirm there was no pups. Scanner was right.

This time the scanner could only find 1. She spent extra time and had a right good search but still could only find the one. Again didn't increase her fold as advised not to for a singleton, and 2 days before her due date xrayed to make sure just 1 and get an idea on if it's size was likely to be an issue. Scanner right again 1 pup.

A quick update...I had her re-scanned on Friday at home (scanner came highly recommended by a breeder friend) She played with and petted her till she was calm and settled and then scanned her and has confirmed that she is in pup.

Thanks everyone for your input/advice, much appreciated.

I was pretty sure she was, from your description of the clear discharge originally - that is a really excellent pregnancy sign.  Good luck!  So glad you found a scanner who could do things without stress... (and accurately!). Make sure you tell that vet they were wrong, if she is in pup!!

Hi could I just take some advice from you so when you got your dog scanned and was empty what week was this at please Ive had a canine scan today done at home she is quite good the reviews on her page are great, I cannot remember exactly when my bitch came off heat but it was somewhere around the start of april she came and scanned her today as her breast have changed massively she said she couldn't see anything my girl as a little fussy around her while she was doing it and she said she can see a small sac which could be nothing but was measuring 3 weeks genistation when your dog had only one puppy what was the scans like thanks

Hello, simple answer not reliable at all. My girl is currently pregnant, she’s 6 weeks(large brees).  Had her scanned at 29 days(should be visible) and they could just see the faint outline of three but said they were not 100%. She was then scanned at 36 days  & they could see 6... may be too early or she may not be pregnant. They can get pregnant up to a week after mating

Scanning is good for determining pregnancy if not done too soon, but shouldn't be used to estimate numbers exactly. Scanning at 30 days after mating (the embryos don't implant till about 20 days after mating) will show if there is a pregnancy. Scanning later gives more and more detail of whelps.

> Scanning is good for determining pregnancy if not done too soon,

Always remembering that a scan will usually only show a pregnancy, or not, at the time of the scan.  It does not mean the bitch will carry to term.  Unless you need to know why not leave it and if nothing happens by the time she should be delivering, then x-ray which is far more reliable.  Obviously if there's an unplanned mating, that would make a scan more relevant.   JMO.

>Always remembering that a scan will usually only show a pregnancy, or not, at the time of the scan.  It does not mean the bitch will carry to term

Just the same as with people. It's a snapshot of the condition at the time of scanning, and that's what people generally need - a simple yes or no.