Hi all, I mated my girl had two great ties and she read the book of symptoms other than gaining weight. Took her for a scan day 59 only to rule out pregnancy. Also was given abs to rule out infection as reason for this discharge for the last 2 weeks. Anyway, tried to coax her back on her 2 meals, no tummy touching and back out with her ma and pa formula one style after the hares, no special treatment to assist the phantom any further. At 2am she woke me up litter pattering round the hall and barked. So I went to see her and she was panting digging etc and has been pretty much since then. I and her managed bit of sleep. I've spoken to vet and we have first appt at half 8. She looks like she's has a fight with the shaver and he spent a good 10 mins with her in the ultrasound, I wasn't able to go through.

So my question is can girls have phantom labours? If not and she's not pregnant what could this mean? She has colostrum. I have Searched Google and asked the vet but none the wiser. Can anyone shed light. It's like she's in the first stage exactly.

Some bitches can take the phantom to the extreme, mine who had 4 phantoms would go back to normal literally over night at 6-7 weeks after the mating and never got milk thank goodness.

Hopefully the vet can give her something to help her get back to normal.

Vet said she's just going through the motions of a phantom. She is day 65

my girl did this we had her scanned and they said no pups, but her phantom was very convincing, lots of milk and on day 60 panting and digging. I "slept" in the kitchen with her sure she was in labour and the panting was quite distressing. The next day had a rescan, no pups and that day she started to slowly relax and returned to normal quite pleased with her invisible babies!

We had one too that made a convincing job of a phantom.  She hadn't been mated. 63 days after the peak of her season, she started panting/nesting/went off her food/vomiting etc. and then she started to strain/push!  I couldn't believe what I was seeing!  Her behaviour was so authentic that I was convinced she must be about to deliver a puppy.

Took her straight to the vets for a scan to double check there were no puppies simply because she was putting on such a good show of labour. As we had young children and male dogs I couldn't say with 100% certainty that she hadn't been mated accidentally due to the children's carelessness (obviously I know she hadn't been but as she was straining/pushing I wanted to double check).  There were no puppies.

Later the same day she finished the labour/pushing part and just wanted to snuggle down with a pile of teddy's she'd collected!

I had a girl as well that used to go through the full labour with pushing etc!
She had these symptoms when not being mated so not a chance of having been pregnant and reabsorbing etc, Her symptoms included discharge like in pregnancy...

My goodness, hormones are powerful things, I knew you could have false pregnancy, my first bitch had a few until we recognised the signs and dealt with it accordingly but I never knew you could have a phantom labour! You learn something new every day!

Things.seem.to have calmed but she's in super protective mode and won't let the little dogs in the bedroom.

Hi Louise, only just seen this, how is pickle now?

I have had good phantoms, with discharge, temp drop and panting and digging and it passed both times within a day.

Hope she is ok x

Seems my girl has being having a phantom labour. Sadly she's not read the textbooks (she's had rapid & significant weight loss), her owner is particularly dim (there have been all the behavioural signs had her owner not focused so much on the horrible symptoms), the first vet we visited to find out what the horrible symptoms were was not clued up about female hormones ... thank god for the 2nd opinion (that the particularly dim owner demanded, being slightly more clued up and not happy with the first opinion) and a vet with an interest and knowledge of breeding.

Fingers crossed, last night was the last of the 'contractions', the today found milk bar will now close down. She's on Galastrop.

I would like to request that all my girls read Book of the Bitch. I've read it ... they're clever dogs. It might make me less grey, and anxious if they did :D

Hope your girl is ok!

I have a bitch that had pantham pregnacys. one of those resulted in a bitch that showed all the signs of being in pup, size everything. one day she didnt want to go a walk and looked a bit sheepish. i went over to her and her body was rippleing from shoulder to rear, this went on a wee shile. i had a look at my diary. if she had been mated the pups would have been due that day. after this my bitch got up and had a shake, and was her usual self again!

She's ok pretty much still refusing to eat her normal biscuits. Has plenty milk, so if anyone in lincolnshire has orphan pups she's a great mummy.