1yr old great dane pregnant

Question

i own 2 great danes. a female blue and a male harlequin.  i know when i adopted them both that i was taking on huge responsibility... part of which was not letting them mate when the female was in heat.  those 2 pups are my whole life. they are like children and i would never do anything to compromise their health or safety.

my female had her first heat about 3-4 weeks ago. during that time, i kept the male either outside on a leash or locked in a seperate part of the house behind a closed door. i was overly careful.  around the same time that she became ready to "stand" for our male, i had to work late and had to entrust my boyfriend to watching the pups. despite my very stricy warning, he decided that keeping the male simply behind the baby gate while he left to run errands would be sufficient. needless to say, now she's pregnant at 1 year old and my vet didnt seem to have any solutions besides "youre an idiot: & :i told u so"

PLEASE PLEASE dont act like every other breeder on their high horse and scold me for not being a "responsible breeder" or how i should have spayed the female. i'm not trying to breed right now. i wasnt planning on breeding for atleast another 2 years and that was only if she checked out health wise and according to AKC guidlines.

ive heard all of the crap already from every person. however, i stil havent gotten an answer or advice. and all i care about is the health and safety of my little girl and what our options are.  will she live? should she be on kennel / bed rest?   should her diet change?   what should i do?  are there options to fix this?

Answer
First of all, I have to say this, I'm not here to judge anyone, or yell at anyone. Yelling doesn't help the situation. One year is awfully young for any dog, but especially for a Great Dane, I'm not going to deny that. However, there are some things that can be done to try to make sure your girl stays healthy. I actually had Danes a long time ago, so I hope that you're not still feeding her puppy food. She should be on a good quality adult food. Don't switch her back to puppy food, and don't up her intake of food right now. Make sure she gets plenty of exercise, walks I mean. You may want to feed her more smaller meals during the day. She'll let you know when it's time to give more food, just start out slowly. I suggest getting an x-ray done when she's past day 50 of her pregnancy to see about how many there are, and if there are any really big ones that may cause trouble during whelping. 24-48 hours after the dog has been bred, you can give the mismate shot. However, it can prolong the heat cycle. If it's been long than 24-48 hours since she was bred then you have two options: have her spayed, or let her have the pups. E-mail me, and I'll give you some really good links on Danes and whelping. My e-mail address is vvvzena@yahoo.com (that's 3 v's). Just put Dane pregnancy or something like that in the subject line.