Turn Off That Garden Hose!

By Dr. Anndrea Kapke - Greenwood Animal Clinic

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Despite the way we may treat them, dogs are not little people in fur coats. For example, their reproductive systems are different than ours. Our veterinary clinic frequently fields phone calls from panicked owners of intact female dogs they find literally stuck to a wandering neighborhood male dog. For some reason, people always want to spray the couple with a garden hose. I suspect that would do the trick for humans, but dogs are another species. [ad#single-post] When dogs breed, and inseparable “tie” occurs. For general audience reading purposes, lets just say that for anatomical reasons those two dogs are going to be “unidog” for the next two to thirty minutes no matter what you do. If you bang pans together and spray them with the garden hose, you’re just going to end up with two slightly deaf, wet dogs tied together. Now, you’ve got two options. You can set aside money to get your family pet spayed this week, or you can set aside money in preparation for her pregnancy and potential complications. The average length of pregnancy for dogs is 65 days. Currently in the United States, there are no Food and Drug Administration approved medications for inducing abortions in dogs. Medications that were commonly used for this in the past have been found to have too high of a risk of causing life threatening complications for the mother. Twenty-five days after the breeding, a veterinarian can draw blood and send it out to a laboratory to do a canine pregnancy test. (Sorry, no over-the-counter urine test for pregnancy in dogs yet.) A veterinarian may be able to feel swellings of the dog’s uterus caused by puppies on the days twenty-six through twenty-eight after breeding. After day thirty, the generalized swelling may make it hard to detect pregnancy by feel. If your veterinarian has an ultrasound machine, she may be able to detect pregnancy after day twenty-five. Puppies will show up on x-rays day forty-two and later because it is at this point the puppies’ bones take on calcium and become visible by x-rays. Dogs should not be vaccinated while they are pregnant. They shouldn’t drink caffeinated drinks either, but that shouldn’t really be an issue. Check with your veterinarian before giving any medication to a pregnant dog. Feed your pregnant dog a premium brand puppy food. Do not supplement her with vitamins. Too much of a good thing is…well, too much of a good thing. A premium brand dog food will have the right amount of vitamins and minerals. Overdosing vitamins and minerals can lead to health problems for the mother and the puppies. At this point, put away the garden hose and be prepared to be a grandparent.

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