The story so far,
Tilly has been mated with a lovely pedigree, field trial champion gun dog called Bosco from the Drakeshead Kennels in Lancashire. He has a wonderful nature and is a beautiful looking dog, so we have high hopes that the pups will be good looking too! To be honest, as long as they are born fit and healthy, that’s all that really matters.
We have been watching Tilly like a hawk since the day of mating, looking for signs that she may be pregnant. It seems that almost instantly, she started to go off her food and had to be persuaded to eat. This lasted for the first couple of weeks – we tried adding interesting morsels of food like tuna and grated cheese into her meals, but nothing seemed to make a difference. Then she started to be sick, to begin with a small amount of white foamy substance whilst out on a dog dog, but then this developed into full scale throwing up of all her stomach contents. After a couple of days of not being able to keep her food down, we took her to the vets for a check up.
The vet gave her a thorough external examination and confirmed that she was fit and healthy, but that she seemed to have developed a form of “gastritis” (stomach upset to you and me!). Unfortunately, in order to treat her correctly, the vet needed to confirm whether she was pregnant or not.
There are at least two ways of confirming pregnancy with dogs, firstly there is a blood test that you can do, which takes at least a couple of days to get the results, as they need to be sent to a lab. Secondly, the vet can use an ultrasound machine, assuming they have the relevant equipment.
Fortunately our vet had the necessary equipment and duly wheeled in a white box, with a flip down lid, which revealed a keyboard – very space age looking!
Tilly had to be shaved on her tummy, so that the vet could get a good picture whilst scanning her. She wasn’t very happy about having her tummy shaved, but stood gritting her teeth, whilst this was done. I think she’s getting a bit fed up of being poked and prodded about by people.
Once the vet had a clear area of skin, she applied some cleansing gel and then applied the ultrasound machine. It was just like being in the maternity hospital again! After a little bit of searching, she found a few black blobs (these were the puppies)! The more unusual shaped one, was her bladder!! The vet then looked for evidence of heart beats – this is done by looking for shimmering movements. She was satisfied that she could see enough movement and confirmed that there were at least four pups. However, you can’t be particularly accurate at this stage, as they are still very small. There could be others “hiding behind the wings”, or the vet could have counted a face and a bottom as two separate pups! Once the pups are further developed, it is easier to count skulls, the vet said. A bit like having a headcount at school!
At the moment, Tilly is only 25 days into her pregnancy, and we were originally told that 28 days+ was a better time for scanning – however, since Tilly had been so sickly, we decided that we needed veterinary confirmation that she was ok – as peace of mind.
Anyhow, our hopes that she was pregnant have been confirmed, so now we can carry on satisfied in the knowledge that we have a pregnant, healthy dog.
To help me, I have bought a fantastic book called “The Book of the Bitch” – it is one of the best books I have read, in terms of telling you what to expect with a pregnant dog. It can be a little graphic in places! Here’s the link, so that you can see for yourself…
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