Pregnancy - 8 Weeks

Here is the 8 week photo - overdue I know!

Rowan is due this weekend. She is still fairly active and eating well, so it's likely she will make it nearly to the weekend at least before she delivers. Since dogs are only pregnant for 9 weeks instead of 9 months, they will not be WEEKS early or late, but more days before or after their due date.

We did get her x-rayed today and it looks as if there are definitely 7 pups, possibly 8. Now if we can get them safely from INSIDE to OUTSIDE we will be quite pleased. They are not particularly huge, it seems, from the x-ray, and Rowan is young and fit, so we are hoping for an uneventful delivery.

What we will be doing this week is firstly splitting Rowan's meals into 3 from two. She has been having trouble once in a while keeping her meals down and I suspect she is just too large now for larger meals with all those pups crowding her abdomen. Also we will begin taking her temperature twice a day to see what that is doing.

A dog's normal temperature is 101 degrees. During the last days of pregnancy, the dog's temperature ranges from 100.2 to 100.8, slightly lower than normal. During the first stage of labor, the progesterone levels in the bitch will drop abruptly and this will cause a drop in body temperature to between 99.4 and 98 degrees. When the temp goes down to 98 and stays down over a 12 hour period, you can hopefully expect the first puppy within 24 hours.

Other signs of impending labor are a loss of appetite (some do, some don't, but most of mine will skip their last meal before delivery) nesting behavior (digging in dog beds and blankets, shredding newspaper in their whelping box, collecting toys, hiding), and being particularly clingy,l or particularly reserved. Most of mine fall into the clingy variety. They don't want me far away, they follow me around, they are somewhat anxious about the impending labor. It's likely they are already experiencing some discomfort at this point.

So, we will keep you posted. We will be monitoring Rowan's temperature, feeding her well, continuing to get her accustomed to the whelping box, and likely scrutinizing her every move. The pups are VERY busy now, not so much swimming peacefully as er... breakdancing in there!