my shih tzu

Question
my shih tzu is pregnate and fairly large in stomach area and i can feel puppies moving around ALOT. but i dont know when she was bred. she has milk coming out of her teats and all she does is sleep and can never get comfortable, and is very restless. she had some discarge but when will she go into labor? will it be a week or a day?

Answer
Well, sounds like she is close. Is this her first litter? Milk production can be a tricky indicator in a second or third time mom.

When was she in season? Count two weeks later as a rough estimate of her ovulation and then 63 days from this time.

You can take her to the veterinarian, which should be done anyway. Have an abdominal flat plate X Ray taken. This will give you a reasonable estimate for how many puppies are in there.

A wise breeder once told me, if when looking at the fetal skeletons you see femurs and clavicles you have 2 days, if you don't see femurs its more like 4 or 5. If you don't see any calcified bones then you have much longer. This is not scientific, merely observational.

Melissa