What Are the Symptoms of Pregnancy in Dogs?
If your dog is pregnant, she’ll start to exhibit some signs early on. While I don’t recommend that you rely solely on these symptoms to diagnose a pregnancy, you can use them to determine whether you should talk to your vet and have her tested.
These symptoms can include:
These symptoms can change depending on the dog and the stage of pregnancy. For example, at the beginning of pregnancy, a dog will likely vomit or turn down food. However, at later stages of pregnancy, her appetite might increase dramatically.
False pregnancy, aka pseudopregnancy, is very common in unspayed female dogs. Most dogs will exhibit some symptoms of a false pregnancy during their heat cycle. It usually occurs four to nine weeks after the end of oestrus.
False pregnancy means the dog exhibits pregnancy symptoms even though she isn’t pregnant. These can include:
Because it’s so common for female dogs to experience pseudopregnancies, you shouldn’t rely solely on the symptoms listed above as indicators of pregnancy. Instead, if your dog is exhibiting these symptoms and you think she is pregnant, consult your vet and have them perform a more reliable test.
Pregnancy vs. Pseudopregnancy in Dogs
Pseudopregnancy is a condition in some entire female dogs where there are physical and behavioral changes that mimic pregnancy following a heat cycle. Pseudo- means imitation, and that’s exactly what a pseudopregnancy is an imitation or false pregnancy.
Pseudopregnancy can occur in some female dogs 45-60 days after a heat. It is caused by a decrease in progesterone hormone, causing an increase in prolactin which can cause changes that look like pregnancy.
These changes include mammary development, nesting behaviors, and sometimes aggression. Pseudopregnancy is not a real pregnancy, and dogs that show signs of pseudopregnancy will have a negative relaxin hormone test.
Pseudopregnancy is usually self-limiting, but you should seek medical advice to rule out pregnancy and if the pseudopregnancy does not seem to go away.
There are Better Ways!
If you suspect your dog is pregnant, you may therefore want to skip giving your dog a home pregnancy test for humans. You may just want to be patient and wait for the early signs of pregnancy in dogs.
What are the signs of early pregnancy in dogs? Expect to see increased appetite, a possible behavior change such as being more clingy, quiet or loving and weight gain with a slight swelling in the belly around 4 weeks into the pregnancy.
The nipples will then become more evident and morning sickness may be seen in some dogs.
However, these symptoms may be the same as those dogs developed in dogs when they go through what is known as a false pregnancy (also known as phantom pregnancy), so things can be misleading at times.
This is because the hormones produced by a non-pregnant dog during a phantom pregnancy are just about the same as those produced during pregnancy.
If you are particularly impatient to know whether your dog is pregnant, you have several options available.
For instance, you can have your vet palpate your dogs abdomen to detect the presence of pups as early as 28 days into pregnancy. This is best done by the vet, as rough palpation by dog owners can be harmful. At this stage, puppies may feel like small walnuts.
Around 42 to 50 days after mating, puppies can also be detected by x-ray, but it may not be yet too accurate in telling the number of puppies. X-rays give a better idea of how many puppies to expect when done around day 55 as this is when the puppys skulls and spines are readily visible on radiographs and the vet can do some counts.
Ultrasound can provide information as early as day 20-22 into pregnancy, but the best results are attained around day 30.
An ultrasound is a non-invasive way to determine pregnancy in dogs. During an ultrasound, high-frequency, low-intensity sound waves reach the tissues of the dogs abdomen.
The abdomen is shaved down and the dog is placed on the back. An ultrasound can detect pregnancy in dogs by detecting the fetal heartbeat
s. An accurate count of how many puppies the dog may expect may not always be possible.
Finally, pregnancy in dogs can be obviously confirmed by simply waiting. If your dog happens to be pregnant, you will see progressing signs of pregnancy after the early signs.
Consider that puppies are usually born approximately 57 to 64 days after breeding with the pregnancy on average being 63 days long.
Can I use a human pregnancy test on my dog ? Daisy’s Pregnancy Test Theory
Dog Pregnancy Test – How To Tell If Your Dog Is Pregnant Using A Pregnancy Test | For dog owners, the questions they get asked most commonly must surely be: “How big is your dog? ” and “Is it a boy or a girl?”. Now, even if you’ve recently got a new puppy, it’s tough to know whether or not it’s actually pregnant.
Dog pregnancy tests can be one of the best tools to use for testing whether your dog is in fact pregnant or not. It’s best to take a look at some of the basics of how to get started. See more ideas about Dog pregnancy tests, Symptoms of dog pregnancy and How do I know if my dog is pregnant.