False pregnancy

I know there was discussion about this on another thread, but I didn't want to take over. My MIL cavalier seems to be going through a false pregnancy (she is lazy, off her food, her nipples are swelling and she just began nesting). There is no possible way that she is pregnant because she has had ZERO contact with intact males since her heat cycle began about a month and a half ago.

Does a false pregancy just run its course? Is there anyway to prevent them or stop them? The poor little thing is nesting like crazy and it is all in her head! Does it require medical attention? Excuse my ignorance :? :?

If she was mine, I'd take her to the vet. :flwr:

If you are positive that she's not pregnant-- I'd just let her ride the hormone high until it passes. Just like in pregnant humans-- some people handle the hormones better than others-- some bitches seem to be affected more than others.

I was responding to the "does it need medical attention"-- the only way to keep them from happening is to have her spay. Having had two females spay in the last couple of months-- they healed beautifully and they are both still as wonderful and loving as ever.

The way to prevent it -- is to spay. Nothing else will stop false pregnancies happening and they can start to happen every cycle.

They can also (more rarely!) go into successive false pregnancies with almost no break between the cycles -- this happened with Cara (not with Claire) as she was back in a fairly intense false pregnancy within two weeks of her previous one ending, and in consultation with one of my vets we decided to spare her what had already been one extremely uncomfortable false pregnancy and spay right away rather than wait. She was incidentally to be pts by the farmer who owned her for having successive false pregnancies rather than having litters like she was supposed to.

Every heat cycle has the potential to go to a full symptomatic false pregnancy because dogs unlike humans go into full pregnancy mode when in their cycle -- the science of it is quite interesting. Humans and many other creatures only prepare for the possibility of pregnancy then shed the uterine lining etc when no fertilised egg implants. This is I believe what places unspayed females at a 25% lifetime risk for mammary cancers and the high risk of pyometra.

Lady had a false pregnancy, i took her to my vets who said she would be ok, last year Lady got Pyometra and nearly died, I since found out there seems to be a greater risk of Pyometra in dogs who have false pregnancys. Id take her to the vet :flwr:

Sarah Xxx

Thank you for all this information!!! I will pass it on to my MIL :flwr: