The Vet Visit after the Mating

<-- This is Roxy the day after she gave birth. She was extremely tired. Isn't she beautiful?




Once Roxy and Buddha had mated, I brought them both to the vet to get them checked out. There were a number of things that I learned at the vet visit:





1. You are NEVER supposed to separate two dogs that are tied together because more than anything, you could hurt the male.



Apparently, the males have a gland that "swells" up inside the female which "locks" the two dogs together. If you pull them apart, that gland could be damaged.

2. When a male and a female dog are end to end, it pretty much means they are finished with their mating session. During this time that they are tail to tail, the fluids coming out of the male dog activate the sperm inside of the female to fertilize the egg.



3. When a male and a female mate and get "tied together," there is a very high chance that the female will end up pregnant.

4. The best time to tell if the female dog is pregnant is to take her to the vet to get checked approximately 3 weeks after she was mated.

5. There are 2 different ways to accurately tell whether or not she is pregnant:

-Ultrasound: This also helps to see how the puppies are doing; are they active? do they look well developed?
-X-Rays: This also confirms whether or not the dog is pregnant and it also helps give an accurate litter size; how many puppies will she give birth to?



6. Male dogs can smell a female in heat from blocks away and more than likely he will go beyond measures to get to her if he can.

7. Male dogs will get stressed out if they cannot get to the female dog who is in heat.

8. If you don't want puppies and have 2 dogs of the opposite sex, it's smart to fix either one or both of them.

9. If a dog was mated and you didn't want the female to have puppies, the only route to go is to spay the female; however this will not allow her to have puppies ever again if you wanted her to in the future.

10. To see if the female wants to mate, the male will go behind her and sniff/lick her vulva. Depending on how she reponds will determine whether or not they will mate. There are 2 different responses:

- She will snap at the male which means she does not want to mate. If this is the case, he will come back and try again later.

OR

-Her tail will go to the side and her vulva will look like it is contracting. This is a sign that she is ready to mate.



Interesting huh?