Pregnant?

Question
Hi Joyce,

Our Dogue de Bordeaux female had her first heat at 11 months which began (oddly enough) on the 1st January 2010. We separated her from our DDB male during the entire heat with an extra week for good measure as we obviously did not want to breed on her first heat. However, now at 9th March, her teats have enlarged and are giving off milk when lightly squeezed and she has put on slight weight. But her stomach does not appear that much larger and I cannot feel any pups or movement inside her abdomen.

We have made an appointment with the vet but they are booked up till late next week! I fear that she might be pregnant. The possibility may exist as we have a housekeeper/nanny working on weekdays and she might have accidentally let them together (although she says no). We have bred German shepherds before but the DDB is very different. Are there any other signs of true or false pregnancy that I can look for? Any advice that you can give me will be appreciated. I am very worried about her as I know the breed is prone to birthing difficulties and I feel so unprepared! I have a whole week till im able to see the vet and by my calculations if she is pregnant its late in the pregnancy. This is a very unexpected situation!

Thank you
Emily

Answer
Hi Emily

The thing is a false pregnancy has all the signs of the true one, without the end result. All you can do is wait. Which is no advice and the hardest thing to do.

On a side note, our DDB's have never had any problems in whelp, and in fact last year delivered 10 healthy pups inside a vari-kennel.  So I wouldn't anticipate any problems on that end.  And conversely she went 78 days from breeding.  So... again my advice is waiting.

Good luck