Just wanted some advice the bitch in question managed a slip mating on day 10 and tied on day 12. Then on day 14 refused to mate with the stud dog  and kept sitting down and putting her tail between her legs.

Do you think that her refusal may mean she has taken?
I have never had a bitch mate and refuse mating this early.

I'd suggest this only means she's gone over now.

Did you progesterone test to see when she had ovulated?

There is no way of knowing if she is pregnant at this early stage. You can do a scan from around 28 days to see if she is and that will tell you at that point if she is pregnant or not, it doesn't mean she will carry to term as some bitches still reabsorb afterwards.

It's not my dog but I did mention it but didn't happen, they are looking into it for next time.

Yes scanning will happen at day 35 and the scanner is never wrong so they will have to see what happens.

The only reason I asked was because all my bitches mate from day 10 onwards till day 16 at least.
But this bitch didn't.

I agree with MamaBas, she has probably gone over.  But the good news is that the time just before a dog goes over, is typically the most fertile.  So hopefully that tie you got, did the trick.

All bitches are different, some mate as early as day 5 (yes really), some not till day 28!  There are averages but many fall outside that and are totally normal.

Thank you for replying. Fingers crossed it has only time will tell once they  can scan.

The one thing I noticed, above all else, with my girls early days after being mated is that their vulva stayed 'puffy', when they'd usually go back to how they were post their first season.  But as said, no two bitches will really be the same.  Just know that unlike humans, when a bitch will accept a male there's a 99.9% probability that she will conceive.  Assuming that both are fertile!

As for scanning, which I never bothered with, is that only confirms, or not, a pregnancy at the time of the scan and there is no guarantee a bitch will carry to term = for me, a waste of time and money and unnecessary stress, perhaps, to a pregnant mum.  Far better is to wait - by 7 weeks you should see puppies moving around internally and if you let her go say 2 days beyond the due date and nothing happens, then have your vet x-ray.

> all my bitches mate from day 10 onwards till day 16 at least

Just to say - I've had a bitch ovulate on day 4 and another on day 28.  The vet told me that the bitch who mated on day 28 couldn't possibly be pregnant.  She whelped 7 good puppies.

Far better is to wait - by 7 weeks you should see puppies moving around internally and if you let her go say 2 days beyond the due date and nothing happens, then have your vet x-ray.

I've recently had an experience that more than ever proved to me the usefulness of scans. I had mated a bitch before lockdown and had 19 people on the waiting list. Some had waited 1-2 years and 3 were looking for assistance dog prospects, so there were a lot of people keen to know how things were going. We'd had two good ties and I had no reason to suspect anything but a normal pregnancy. Maiden bitch but proven dog. I thought the bitch was pregnant. She looked it to me, but of course I'd normally have a scan. What was odd was that this bitch's mother had started to gain weight. I told my husband several times that he must cut down on her food as she was fatter than her pregnant daughter. So he fed her less, obviously.

By the time the mated bitch got to 7 weeks I had buyers contact me pretty much every day, and I was starting to become a bit concerned. This is a large bitch, even for the breed, and I figured that maybe she carried just a small litter. The big worry was that there might be a single pup, and in this breed I know 4 breeders whose bitches were pregnant with a single pup and each ended up with a c-section and a dead pup. At the same time, I was starting to worry that the other bitch might be pregnant too! She'd not had a season for 18 months. Early March she acted a bit flirty but there was no blood and no significant swelling. To play safe the male dog that usually spent time with my bitches was kennelled.

I finally found somebody to scan both the bitches. I believed that both were pregnant. My husband was sure that the mated one was pregnant and the other had a phantom. We just didn't know! And we're not novices.

Turns out the bitch I had mated was NOT pregnant. At least that meant no risk of a c-section. But her mother, who we did not know had been mated, had not been wormed, had had her food ration reduced, and who is out of date with her eye test, SHE was pregnant. And due in around 4 days time the scanner said!

Luckily we had enough time to rearrange everything. The younger bitch no longer needed to be separated from the other bitches, but the older one had to be separated ASAP. We were very lucky in that she whelped 4 good sized, healthy pups (very small litter for the breed), and has not suffered at all by not being fed an approriate pregnancy diet. 

Never again will I trust myself without a scan!

> Never again will I trust myself without a scan!

I'd suggest this situation was pretty unique!!  I don't understand the 'at least that meant no risk of a C.Section' comment in terms of having or not having a scan, to be honest.  Towards the end of a pregnancy, x-ray would be far more reliable in terms of whether or not the bitch is empty.

Again, none of mine had a 'pregnancy diet' other than we had to cut back the bulk towards the end of their pregnancies because there was very often no room for big amounts of food.      If that happened, we'd concentrate on protein.

I have to say, I've progesterone tested once, and found it pretty much useless, great information but timings meant my bitch had gone over nearly.  So I don't trust progesterone testing, but was shown ferning which is really interesting.  And I've tried scanning, but don't really trust it.  I now leave it, if she's pregnant then she is, and there will be pups, and it's pretty obvious they are there.  Absolutely not a huge amount of experience, three litters in 10 years of breeding plans, but I'm philosophical about these things.

I come from a generation that had no scanning available to us. I was taught how to palpate to confirm a pregnancy, and that method served me well for the almost 30 years that I had litters. I never bothered how many foetuses there were - the knowledge that the girl was in whelp was enough.
I only experienced resorption once; that was a beautifully bred Golden Retriever who after producing a litter of two, resorbed her next pregnancy, and then failed to take the following year. She lived to 14, and was perfectly healthy right up to the last few months of her life - just not very fertile I guess.

> I don't understand the 'at least that meant no risk of a C.Section' comment in terms of having or not having a scan, to be honest.

It obviously meant that, knowing that the bitch wasn't pregnant with even a single whelp, that they didn't have to watch her like a hawk for signs of inertia and an emergency rush to the vet. The simple, non-invasive scan saved many days of increasing anxiety, which nobody needs.

I know many people who have had bitches ready before day 10 and right up to day 28. Usually when they refuse to be mated they are not ready, either too early or too late.

I wouldn't try again now. Your friend is on the wait and see game now

Since my bitches are never with a male dog during seasons, I think it would be pretty impossible for me not to know one was pregnant without a scan   And I have heard of scans saying there were no pups and then the bitch goes into labour and whelps a pup... which was hiding... so I don't think I would trust the result and not watch my bitch on her due date anyway.

The only time I've thought a scan was useful, was when someone told me they thought their bitch was pregnant but the scan showed pyo and they were then able to act before it became more serious or ruptured - I think they were able to treat medically and she went on to have a successful litter on her next heat and was then spayed.

I think it probably depends on the bitch and how stressy she gets at the vets and during scans TBH.  If I had a bitch that I thought would be at all worried then I just wouldn't do it during pregnancy.  If she were pretty chilled about it all, then I can't see that it hurts as long as you accept you may well get inaccurate information - either way (more or less pups than stated!).

> I come from a generation that had no scanning available to us

Me too really.  But again I suppose I didn't really have an urgent need to know whether I had a pregnancy going on, or not.  I had what I hoped were viable matings and waited it out.   I think we may have had one who absorbed all but one puppy.   She seemed to be growing up to around 5 - 6 weeks after which she didn't really show any sign of the size I had with my other girls.  She had one puppy by C.Section (she sat growing bigger by the day).   Although there was no sign of any other foetuses in there, I still think that's what happened.  And actually this was her second 'litter' to two different studs,  after she ony produced two the first time.  She was one of two sisters and I always felt she was going to be the better brood (her sister was my Canadian-bred UK Ch. who was always the prima donna of the two).  It just shows how wrong we can be.

I would agree with the comment about scan or not, I'd still be watching at the end of a pregnancy even if a scan said no puppies!

My first litter I still have an x-ray where there's a pup stuck blocking the way out, spine firmly wedged against the exit, you can count all the little skulls and spines in there.  My litter last year, I don't have a copy of the x-ray, but the vets took one as she'd had five good sized pups and was starting to flag, so they wanted an idea of how many more were in there, she's not a big bitch but she had quite an enormous tummy full.  She had 11 in total in the end, quite a surprise to me as she'd had six for her first litter, and I was hoping for a nice easy number like that again, it was a repeat mating.  The biggest battle was telling the vet they weren't sectioning her unless she needed it, they are so quick to resort to surgery!

The simple, non-invasive scan saved many days of increasing anxiety, which nobody needs.

Exactly JG. Especially as I suddenly had a different pregnant bitch to watch over, isolate, get whelping box ready for etc. Had both been pregnant it would have involved some major planning and changes and worries. Now I could concentrate on the one bitch who was pregnant. And I knew she carried more than one pup thanks to the scan.

I've never before had a situation like this. An otherwise fit and healthy bitch not having a season for 18 months and then managing to get pregnant without anybody knowing. She and the dog live in the house, not in kennels, and if we leave the house they are separated, so it's not like they were ever unattended. Can only assume they mated during the night when we were asleep!!