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How can pregnancy be stopped?

Yaron

Well-known member
Paddy has finished her first heat cycle about 2 weeks ago. We made every possible effort to keep the other male dog we have away from her. I can't understand how this is possible, but looking at the signs, I am afraid that she is pregnanet.

I saw some green vomit one morning and didn't know this could mean - morning sickness, she sleeps alot more too. I can tell her nipples have developed further. Do the nipples continue to develop after a first heat cycle that was finished without prenancy?

I am so worried now, if she is pregnant, could it be stopped without harming her?
:( :( :(
 
I would get her to the vet immediately and have it checked out. Your other dog is quite large from what I remember - a pregnancy with big puppies could prove fatal. Otherwise it could just be a complication left over from the heat. you have to go to the vet. Good luck!
 
Yes, just had a look and saw Leto is a goldie. Way too big for a cav - you have to go to the vet.
 
Some virgin bitches can get very large nipples. One of our Boxers that was never mated had nipples probably about 4 times the size of our other 2 that had each had a litter. You can't afford to get this wrong though, so off to the vets with you.

Oh, and you would be amazed at what a mating can take place through & over :yikes
 
Like others have said, off to the vet. If she is pregnant, the sooner it's terminated, the better. With the cross you are talking about, I really believe it does have to be terminated. Sorry.

Sometimes a girl will go through a false pregnancy that will show a lot of the signs (we even had one of our girl's milk come in!) of pregnancy, but you really have to be sure of whether she is pregnant or not. Please don't take any chances, for her sake.

Crossing my fingers for you that it didn't happen.
 
Of course we are on our way to the vet - I already called and asked to be checked asap even though they are closed today. We will see the vet very soon. The vet did mention the possibility of false pregnancy too.
My question is - how can an abortion be done at this stage. I was hoping it doesn't have to be with cutting like in a ceasarean.

Also, isn't it meant to be difficult to detemine preganancy before 5 weeks have past?
 
Your vet will be able to tell you options.

They can have a false pregnancy -- the problem is if you don't take the steps to terminate a possible pregnancy asap it becaomes an increasingly involved and invasive procedure. It can be very hard to tell until it is too late if you do nothing at all (this is again, one of the risks of having an intact female).

Generally unless you are a breeder or can keep males and females totally apart at all times (eg have kenneling facilities) it makes far more sense for pet owners to at least neuter one of the animals if there's a male and female in the house. The female is obviously the greater risk and also has much higher health risks by remaining unspayed -- a 25% chance of cancer over her lifetime for example. Hence one option you may want to consider is a spay as part of aborting the litter. In rescue we often do this because so many females in rescue come in pregnant and the last thing the world needs is more accidental puppies.

Generally a female must be totally isolated from any males for the entire 3-4 weeks of her heat -- good breeders often will have this run 4-5 weeks to be safe. That means the dogs must never, ever have access to each other for that entire stretch of time and the female can only be walked very cautiously if at all, and never allowed off lead. If the male is out, the female must be crated or safely in another room, door closed and impossible to open. Then when the female is out, the same goes for the male. It is a major management task. They can mate in mere seconds.
 
Having lost one female (op not possible as she was 14 and had a heart problem) and nearly losing the other, I would strongly recommend spaying. My girls were ill in the days when spaying was not routine, due to anaesthetics not being as safe as modern ones are.

Pyometra can strike swiftly and at any age. It can be fatal within hours, as Anita, who posts occasionally, will tell you. She nearly lost her Milly well before she was a year old.
 
Please remember that a dog has a TOTALLY different reproductive cycle than a human. A bitch will have to ride out the progesterone high for weeks--- this is why you can't just do a progesterone test to see if she is pregnant-- It will be high either way. It would be normal for her nipples to get larger etc... All my girls become a bit moody, sleepy, clingy--- it is HORMONAL right before, during and after a season. Will she eat??? When her uterus starts to stretch they can go off food. Mine have actually had morning sickness where they "smell" the food in the bowl and then vomit (eating nothing).
 
Hope all goes well with your vet visit and let us know what s/he recommends and you decide to do. :flwr:
 
So, we have been to the vet a few hours ago. Our vet - she came especially for us. She immedietly told me after checking Paddy that she is glad it's not a uterus infection(I think it's called pyometra). Other then that, she couldn't tell if she is pregnant and since I am not sure that there was any actual mating, we can only sit and wait... She actually tends to think it's not pregnancy. As for the different signs, it can't be a measure as this could also well mean a false pregnancy.

So... we will wait and see. we will return in 2-3 weeks for another check-up.

As for food - she seems to eat normally. She never was a big eater.

Maybe I am just a bit hysterical when it comes to my little baby girl? :roll:

Thanks for all your advice,

Yaron.
 
You could do an ultrasound at about 30 days from her last day of her season. That would tell you for sure. I think we pay around $95 around here; small price to pay for knowing for sure. That's what we did a year or so ago when we thought we might have had an accidental breeding that we didn't know about. We were fortunate in that our girl was not pregnant; just one of those darn false pregnancies!
 
Ah. Yeah, BC take 2 years to be considered mature, but they do get fixed long before then, generally sometime after 6mos before 1yr. How long for cavs? And can they be done before that w/o any health risks?
 
Yaron also has been showing Paddy so would have had a reason not to neuter at that time.

Most prefer not to neuter cavaliers before 6 months -- unless there are urgent reasons to neuter an animal before that time, I think 6 months really should be the minimum. There is evidence that a dog neutered earlier will not have any health risks of great concern (and surely, a pregnancy has high levels of health risks), but many feel that this is just very young and that it is better to allow the body to develop more normally before cutting off natural hormones before they even reach the equivalence of adolescence. Many wait til they complete their growth at around a year before neutering, if they feel they can responsibly manage the dog until that point. (y)

I work in cavalier rescue and have worked in general rescue with both cats and dogs but do not like to do very early neuter and certainly do not feel it should be mandatory (as the California spay/neuter bill under discussion there would require). However I can understand the stance of some rescues who feel it is better within their own rescue to do early neuter than risk more unwanted cats or dogs. I just would not do that with my own rescues.
 
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