Where Are We At With Glory’s Breeding? Part 2

Where Are We At With Glory’s Breeding? Part 2

A couple weeks ago I wrote Part 1 of Where Are We At With Glory’s Breeding. If you missed it you can read the full version here. The short version is: I talked about preparing your dog for breeding by doing genetic tests, other tests that can be done, picking a stud dog, the heat cycle of the bitch, breeding and implanting of the eggs. I left off at palpating for pregnancy and doing a ultrasound for confirming a pregnancy.

Pregnancy confirmation can be done by palpation a experienced person should be able to palpate the fetuses between 20-30 days after last mating. A blood test and ultrasound can be done at 25 days.  Pregnancy or gestation is usually 56-66 days with a average length of 63 days.

I did take Glory to work with me on June 4th to have her palpated for pregnancy. Unfortunately we couldn’t get a 100% conformation that she is pregnant. My boss felt her uterus which you can’t do normally so that might be a good sign or it could mean she is in a false pregnancy. She was just a little to chubby to get a good feel. She isn’t eating like she should which is another good sign but again might be hormones from a false pregnancy. Glory is also being really affectionate which is another good sign that she is pregnant. Then on June 8th 29 days from when Thunder bred Glory a ultrasound was done. If you missed the post about the results you can read it here. I will also tell you the results which confirmed a pregnancy.

So where are we at with Glory’s breeding?

We are at week five out of a 8-9 week pregnancy. At this point I can defiantly tell that Glory is pregnant. Her belly area is rounder, her boobs are getting bigger, if you didn’t know her you would think she gained a ton of weight, lucky for her (and me) it is pregnancy weight.

I have a app on my phone called WhelpHelp. It is a app that you put in the breeding date and it will tell you what should be happening on certain days. On June 11th, 32 days into her pregnancy it told me that I should start to increase Glory’s food ration but not to overfeed. Excessive weight gain should be avoided. The fetuses are now fully developed miniature dogs. It’s been fun following along with this app to see how correct it is and so far it’s been pretty accurate.

Glory is being fed Pro Plan Sport this is a performance food which means it has higher calories than normal maintenance food. I will continue her on this food and increase the amount of food I feed her. She needs extra calories to support the growth of the fetuses and to produce milk to support the puppies after birth. I will keep letting her get some exercise so she stays somewhat in shape.

Glory’s abdomen will continue to enlarge during the 6-7 weeks of pregnancy then around the 8th week of pregnancy her mammary glands will enlarge and milk may appear on the nipples.

Stayed tuned for Part 3 where I talk about whelping a litter. 28 days left!