Weird behavior

Question
I have a female brindle boxer that is about 9 years old. She is very very well behaved, she is house broken, U really couldn't ask for a better dog.  For about the last 1 1/2 years, it seems like about every 5-months she starts acting very strange. She digs holes in the yard(which she never does) and tries to bury her toys, she also trys to bury them anywhere she can, ie..couches, beds, corners of the house. She constantly walks around with one of her toys stuck in her mouth.. She lays around like shes worn out, she breaths real hard and hardly eats.. I thought it was because she was in heat, but it seems like its about a month after shes out of heat when she starts acting strange..  Is this something i should be worried about? Why is she doing this? What can i do to stop it?  Any info would be greatly appreciated.. Thanks

Answer
Hi Shonta,

It sounds as if your girl is going through false pregnancies.  Bitches go through the same hormonal changes whether they're bred or not; they will display symptoms of these changes to varying degrees.  Some show no signs at all, some go so far as to go through a false "labor" and produce milk.

There's really nothing that will stop it except having her spayed.  If she doesn't go through estrus, she won't go through a false pregnancy.  Bitches don't have a menopause - she will continue to have heat cycles - so you will probably deal with this after every season, and it may (or may not) get worse as time goes on.

Spaying her is something to consider at this point, even without the false pregnancies - the older a bitch gets, the higher her chances of developing pyometra, which is an infection of the uterus that can be fatal.  If she's coming into season twice a year, her odds are that much higher (basically every season make the uterus more likely to become infected).  At her age, you also need to consider the safety of general anesthesia and surgery, and balance that with her false pregnancies and risk of pyometra.  This is definitely something to discuss with your vet, and in the mean time familiarize yourself with the signs of pyometra so that if she does develop it you may be able to catch it early.  There is a good article on the condition here:
http://www.vizsladogs.com/ARTICLES/pymoetra.htm

I will note that in one bitch I had who went through moderate false pregnancies, giving the flower essence Walnut during and for a couple of months after her season seem to help ease her symptoms.  (There is more on Walnut, and links to information about flower essences in general, here:
http://www.bachcentre.com/centre/38/walnut.htm)