A Guide To The Gestation Period For Dogs
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A Guide To The Gestation Period For Dogs
A veterinarian describes the signs that your dog might be pregnant, and explains what's required to see her through gestation to a successful birth.
Hi. I'm Jamie Crittal from Beech House Veterinary Centre in Surrey, and I'm here to talk to you about dog breeding. A guide to the gestation in the bitch.
A bitch's pregnancy, that is exactly what the gestation means, classically is nine weeks. It can be anything as short as 57 days, but may extend on to 70 days. During pregnancy, or gestation in the bitch, actually everything happens naturally, and that's the big take home message.
You don't need to do anything special for them. Nature takes control. And the big take home message: don't overfeed your bitch.
It's absolute myth that they need to have any special care, at least for the first six weeks of their pregnancy. But the most important thing is that you're feeding a fantastic, good, balanced, complete diet designed for pregnant bitches, and often this may be a puppy food, and in my experience, the best food would be Hill's Puppy Food. At about week three, she'll start to be getting slightly rounder.
You might notice that she's losing her waist, and at this stage, it's a really good idea to go and visit your vet and actually have it confirmed that she's pregnant, and there's another video on VideoJug that actually goes into this in much greater detail. By about week six, you probably should start thinking about feeding her smaller meals and more regularly. That's because the puppies are taking their space within her tummy, and as a result, her stomach just cannot fill to the same extent, so she'll feel more comfortable by being fed in that way.
At that stage, her mammary glands will start to get larger, and she may even start to produce a little bit of milk, but this still isn't any guarantee that she's pregnant, because bitches can go into a pseudo-pregnancy, or a false pregnancy, which almost mirrors true pregnancy. At nine weeks of age, classically her gestation period will come to an end when she starts giving birth to her puppies. It normally happens at night when it's quiet, but it can happen as early as day 57, so that's the time to really look out for those whelping signs. .