How Long Are Dogs Pregnant

Posted by Gerald Njuguna on September 10th, 2007 at 03:21pm

How Long Are Dogs Pregnant & What To Expect From Your Dog

Is your dog about to have puppies? Puppies are cute to have but their is a lot of work involved in maintaining them. If your dog is pregnant, i have compiled some tips on how to get your dog ready for birth.

Dogs are pregnant for about 63 days. This is not a very long time so you need to make sure you are ready before the puppies arrive on the scene.

During this period make sure that you are feeding your dog on a regular basis and feeding her healthy foods. Pregnant dogs need to be fed more than usual. You may need to move to a growth type of food or puppy food during the pregnancy. Do this by reducing the quantity of regular feed that you give your dog and at the same time increasing the amount of new food.

Its advisable that you carry this out over a period of about 1 week in order to prevent the dog from having loose stool. I would also advice you to consult your veterinarian to know the appropriate diet for your dog. Please ensure that you feed your dog a high quality diet. Their is no need for you to supplement the dog diet with vitamins unless a dog doctor recommends it.

Your dog may exhibit symptoms similar to morning sickness that affects women around the third week of the pregnancy Should the morning persist for more than one week, please visit the vet doctor to find out if their are any hidden with the dog.

The dog also needs to be exercised during the pregnancy period. You need to take the dog out on walks but if your dog is the working dog type or a sports dog, you need to stop until the puppies are weaned.

Three weeks before delivery, you need to isolate the pregnant dog from other dogs. Continue to isolate the dog at least three weeks after the puppies are born. The reason is that dogs that are not vaccinated can carry infectious diseases that can be very harmful to puppies.

If your dog is due for vaccination during the pregnancy, hold off on this until after the puppies are weaned. Vaccination during pregnancy can be harmful to the fetuses. An ideal situation is to vaccinate the dog before it breeds

Provide the dog a comfortable place to whelp and raise its puppies when the time to deliver draws near. An ideal place would provide easy access to the dog to come and go, but also confining the puppies.

The temperature of the dog drops down slightly when the dog is about to deliver. You can monitor this with a rectal thermometer. Normal canine temperature is about 1oo to 102 degrees. When the temperature drops below 100 degrees, the dog is about to go on labor in 24 hrs.

When dogs go into labor, they start to vomit and become restless, pant and even shiver. Don’t freak out, this is normal. Do provide the dog fresh water at all times. Labor lasts about 12 hours. When puppies are being delivered, they come out covered with a thin membrane. The mother normally removes this membrane and if she does not, please clear the membrane otherwise the puppies might suffocate. Puppies come out 1/hr with upto half an hour of straining between deliveries.

If your dog does not deliver within one day, if she is straining to deliver for more than one hour or if it takes more than four hour break between pups, you need to call the vet immediately as this might be indicative of a problem.

It is always important to discuss all of your concerns and what to expect with your veterinarian prior to delivery.

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He teaches over 1,000 safe, natural and effective solutions for healing your pet that are easy to understand and can be implemented at home. You don’t need a degree in Veterinary Science to do them I highly recommend this definitive manual if you are searching for information on dogs pregnancy. To get more info, visit his site by clicking here->The Veterinary Secret .

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