had my girl mated 22 and 19 days ago, she will not eat her dry food but is always hungry and asking for food, so she is having 3 small tins of butchers tripe puppy food per day with no biscuits as she leaves them, the thing is she is hardly doing a poo, its gone from 3 times per day to once, she is fine in herself and doesnt strain whilst doing it, so i was wondering whether it could be that she is absorbing more from her food to develop her puppies (hopefully)  or because dogs on tinned food just dont poo as much as if fed dry food, to be honest in the past i have fed some of my dogs tinned and some dry and never noticed any difference in the amount of poo they produced, Any experience or ideas please.

It's difficult when they don't eat, isn't it? My bitch is due in 2 weeks and I'm having problems getting her to eat. She will eat raw chicken wings, raw meat, cat food ;) in fact almost anything but her own food :) . What size dog is she? Is it a normal amount of food she is eating, or are you worried that she might need more? She shouldn't be getting any more than normal just now. Have you tried adding sardines in oil, or similar, to her dried food? It might just be enough to get her started. If she is taking all the nutrients out of the food then she might not need to poo as much as normal. I can't think of anything else off-hand, but will give it some thought. :)

thankyou, she is a medium sized dog and she is eating about right for her normally, i cannot get her to eat her dry food, but i am not bothered as long as she is eating.

One thing I noticed that I am doing (don't know why I didn't think of it last night :) ) is that I am actually taking pocket fulls of her usual dry food out with me when we go for walks. She keeps coming back for a few bits every few steps :D That way she is getting some of her normal food, as well as her extras ;) As I have 3 large dogs, I can't really say whether she is pooing more or less ;) It's still an awful lot to pick up

we are going for a scan on thursday..............and i am worried sick, to be honest i am swinging from thinking she is pregnant and no she isnt, the last bitch i mated we did everything right proven dog she was swabbed mated twice on her optimum days and when i took her for her scan the vets said they didnt think she was pregnant but could be one puppy,  so i took her to Pat Hawker and she was empty this was despite experienced breeders telling me she was pregnant (she had no obvious signs of a phantom or pregnancy, but she was only 28 days from mating) mabel was not swabbed (microscope broken) so we just mated her on day 10 and 12, the only litter i have bred were from an unproven (but champion) dog, we only mated her once on day 11 scanned at four weeks as having 5 pups, she went on to have 13, i dont want to know how many just to confirm pregnancy for me.
The waiting is doing my head in.

Oh, I know how you feel. My older bitch missed twice after a litter when I tried to get a 2nd litter. I gave up and had her spayed :( It's heartbreaking. You go to all the effort and nothing happens. To be honest, though, I think she miscarried/absorbed the 1st time, and just didn't take the 2nd time. Still, I have her son so can go back into the line at a later time.

I thought about having my bitch scanned, but by the time I really got round to it she was obviously pregnant :D so didn't bother. Saved myself a bit of money there (well, not really, dogs got extra special treats ;) ) I'm now dreading the size of this litter. She just keeps getting larger every time I look at her :D

good luck, i feel hopeful though im not counting my eggs, she is extra clingy even coming and sleeping on my bed with me, which she has never done before she has always slept on the sofa and never offered to come upstairs, but i know how good some girls are at making you think they are pregnant when they havent taken.