Unnoticed Heat

Question
I'm watching an 8 month old male border collie. I also have a 16 month old standard poodle bitch. He arrived Saturday and while he seemed very interested in her, I figured all the sniffing and licking was normal as my spayed female has been doing it too. Last night I was brushing her and noticed that she had a light discharge on her tail. I wiped her behind and there was a light brown/pink discharge. She had been left unsupervised all week with the male and no tie has been witnessed but she was being very social with him when he first arrived, then she started running away from him. Now she'll play with him for a little and runs away and he doesn't seem interested in sniffing that her much anymore. Is it possible she was already in heat when he arrived and this is just the tail end of her heat? I know that it is fully possible that they have mated. Although I didn't notice one, her vet is convinced she might have already had a heat previously that was either silent or I just didn't notice. There was a time back in July where she had a temporary attitude change. The breeder told me when I got her to wait until at least her 2nd heat but I planned on waiting until she was 2yrs. Is she too young to have a litter? I was planning on breeding her in the future to a carefully selected poodle stud.

Answer
Hi Katherine

With another dog in the house, especially a spayed female, she may have kept your female clean so you wouldn't have noticed.

She could be ready to breed now, or alternatively she could be finished her season.  This is a tough call since you didn't notice anything.  My advise would be to keep her separated for the next 10 days from this new male ... just in case.

Regardless, she's not to young for a litter it would just be a shame if was a litter of Coodle's instead of a beautiful litter of Poodles.

Sorry I couldn't have been more help.

Good luck