1. How to determine if your dog is pregnant

The signs of pregnancy in female dogs appear about one week after mating. The specific manifestations are: the vagina of a pregnant female dog will shrink rapidly, and pregnancy reactions such as vomiting and loss of appetite may occur at three or four weeks of pregnancy. At 20-30 days of pregnancy, the mammary glands of pregnant dogs will protrude, the breasts will swell, and the nipples will turn pink. In the fourth week after breeding, touch the location of the uterus on the female dog's abdomen with your hands. The pregnant female dog can feel an embryo as big as an egg. In addition, 20-30 days after breeding, a veterinarian can be asked to take a blood sample test or use ultrasonic diagnosis and other methods for early diagnosis.

The nutrition of the female dog during pregnancy is important. It plays a decisive role in the health of the female dog, ensuring the normal development of the fetal dog, preventing abortion, and the secretion of the female dog’s milk. Pregnant female dogs should be fed foods with higher nutritional value to increase the protein, heat energy, calcium and phosphorus content in the diet. In the early stages of pregnancy (within about 35 days), pregnant female dogs can be raised according to the original feeding method. On days 35-42, 42-49, and 49-60, the feed should be increased by 10%, 20%, and 30% respectively on the original basis. %, especially in the later period, attention should be paid to adding some feed that is easy to digest, high in protein, rich in calcium, phosphorus and vitamins. From 35 to 45 days of pregnancy, the baby should be fed 3 times a day, and from 44 to 60 days, it should be fed 4 times a day.

During pregnancy, female dogs often become sluggish and lazy. At this time, dog owners must give their female dogs appropriate outdoor activities and let them bask in the sun more. It is absolutely forbidden to let their mothers run, jump, run up and down stairs, or fight with other dogs. Wait to avoid miscarriage.

2. Dietary care for dogs during pregnancy

Dogs do not need special supplements during pregnancy except for the normal dog food and diet. But the content of the feed needs to be changed to feed specifically for puppies. Puppy feed contains more protein, as well as more calories and calcium, which is enough to meet the nutrients needed by the mother dog to maintain her own life and the growth of the baby in her belly. The feeding period of puppy food needs to be extended to one and a half months after the puppy is born and then stopped after weaning. Calculating the two-month pregnancy period, the dog mother must eat puppy food for a total of about three and a half months.

When a dog is pregnant, as long as she eats normally and has a good appetite, from the professional perspective of an animal veterinarian, after giving a good brand of puppy feed, there is no need to give the dog too many supplements. Unless you are a very picky dog ​​mother who supports canned feed, you may need to supplement with extra calcium, because the calcium in canned feed is only 1/15 of dry feed. Insufficient calcium supplementation will cause the dog mother to have hypocalcemia.

3. Feeding of dog mother during 20 days of pregnancy

Because it is not possible to tell whether the dog is pregnant in the first 20 days, the amount of food given to the dog does not need to be increased, it can be the same as usual. However, the content of the feed can be changed to puppy feed first. If it is determined that the dog is pregnant, special calcium supplementation can be added in the mid-term.

IV. Care for the dog mother in the first 20 days of pregnancy

Because the fertilized egg has just implanted in the uterine wall, if the implantation is not stable enough and the mother dog is frightened or runs and jumps around, it is easy to miscarry. It may not be that all the abortions are completed. Dogs are multi-fetal animals and can originally be pregnant with 6 babies. , after miscarriage, there may be only 2-3 left.

In the first 20 days after pregnancy, do not let the mother dog be too restless, and do not give her a bath within two weeks after breeding, because a shock in the bath will cause the contraction of smooth muscles and cause miscarriage.

5. Feeding of the dog mother during the 20 days of pregnancy

It has been confirmed that the dog's mother is pregnant, so you can add more to the dog, 20% - 25%, or even more than usual. In addition to the general feed, you can also give more calcium supplements, multivitamins and High in nutrition. Because the nutrients absorbed by the mother dog have to be distributed to the baby in her belly, eating more in the middle of pregnancy will not make her gain too much weight

6. Care for the dog mother during the last 20 days of pregnancy

At this time, the mother dog’s belly droops and her body becomes wide and wide. She doesn’t want to move much and wants to rest until the last 5-6 days, when she starts to look for a place to give birth. It will choose a quiet and dark place where people are less frequent, making it feel safer. We can also start preparing a suitable delivery room for it.

7. Feeding of mother dog in the last 20 days of pregnancy

In the last 20 days of pregnancy, the mother dog should return her diet to normal, because if she continues to eat uncontrollably in the last 20 days, it will make her too obese and may affect the birth. At this time, it is enough to supplement calcium and multivitamins to keep the mother dog at a certain weight until birth. The food intake of three meals can also be divided into four or five meals, so that the dog mother can eat small amounts frequently and not be unable to digest due to eating too much in one meal. This can also absorb fixed nutrients.