# False Pregnancy?



## Jenna09 (Dec 20, 2007)

I have a female shih tzu that was born August 28, 2006. She has had 2 heat cycles and the latest one for 3 weeks starting around October 6thish 2007. She is not spayed because she has congential kidney disease and the vet believes the anesthetic is too risky. During her heat she wore a doggy diaper in the house and only had to off to go outside and she was watched everytime while she was outside. A male puppy around 4.5 months was periodically at my house and after a few times tried to mate with her even though we were told he wouldnt, so home he went. There was no pentration because of the diaper and the small fact that he was confused and was trying to mate at the wrong end...her head. Since this last heat her breasts and nipples have become so large they are hanging at least 1.5 inches and are so large they bouncing around when she moves. I have researched false pregnancies and she had some other symptoms, swollen vulva, increased resting, food decrease/increase, etc. but I am still not sure if that is what she is experiencing. Within the last 2 weeks her breasts have gotten to the size I have already described (all the way up her body) and they have become more firm. Our vet told us this isnt anything to worry about, but I would like some other opinions or other peoples experiences with dogs who may have this. 
Thanks
Jenna
ps. I have 2 other dogs one neutered and one to be spayed (she is a pup) and the puppy I referred to in my post and my female pup are being neutered/spayed in the next 2 weeks.


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## RopingBarrels (Feb 8, 2007)

I don't know much about this...but my aunt's minpin does this at every heat. She has no way to even be around a male dog, and she has never had pups. She actually get's milk during these times, and treats her little plastic toys like puppies (nuzzles them, carries them carefully, doesn't like people by them, etc). She eventually just comes out of it though and returns to normal...until her next heat.


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## Shalva (Mar 23, 2007)

generally I give an herb called pulsatilla for about two weeks around the time that the puppies would be due which is when the false pregnancy usually happens...... 

so once the bleeding stops then count out 55 days and start the pulsatilla..... you can get it at the health food store...... then give it once a day for 2 weeks.... that does seem to alleviate some of the symptoms. you might find your girl try to nest or carry her babies around.... I know of one girl who actually tried to nurse some stuffed animals. 

false pregnancies are normal in an unspayed bitch.... however, I understand your vet not wanting to spay but really I would get a second opinion and see if they feel better using sevoflouraine instead of isoflouraine.... that is what is used for exotics and is what we use for my seizure active boy..... I would be very concerned about the risk of pyometra in a girl that repeatedly comes into season. I would want to try and find a vet who could do a spay or if she ever has to go under for something else to do the spay at the same time.... coming into season repeatedly is really dangerous and raises the risk of pyometra significantly which can be fatal. 
S


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## Dana1384 (Aug 13, 2007)

My gold had a false pregancy in her second heat, all the sign in which you are saying she had and we took her in to get checked, and the vet explained to us that it was a false pregance and the symptoms would go away, which they did in about 2 weeks. It was a scare though considering we were on vacation and had her kenneled at the vet, and came home to her acting like she was pregant!


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## Willowy (Dec 10, 2007)

I, too, would try to find a vet that uses an anesthetic that's safe for exotics, such as ferrets and rabbits. They're very sensitive to anesthetics, so if it's safe for them, it should be safe for her. I would do this because I think a pregnancy would be more dangerous for her than the spay. Pregnancy puts a lot of stress on the organs.


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## FriendsOfZoe (Aug 7, 2007)

Jenna09 said:


> There was no pentration because of the diaper and the small fact that he was confused and was trying to mate at the wrong end...her head.


Thanks for giving us a good laugh with this mental image!! The bf rushed to his defense, of course, claiming that he's only 4.5 months old and is still figuring things out!


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## Jenna09 (Dec 20, 2007)

Thanks for the replies. I have only been at my current vet for 7 months, after leaving our normal family vet we have been using for 20+years. The reason we are now at this new vet is that she is more willing to pursue my fur-family members illnesses, especially my 15 year old shih tzu who was on death's door and our old vet said it was just old age we went for a second opinion and it turns out he has Cushings which is now under control and he is back to his normal self. 
Anyways my vet may pursue the spay after a few more months of tests to ensure that all of her blood levels are normal. We originally went to spay her at our old vet and the optional pre-surgery blood work came back showing abnormalities. When she was 8 weeks old she had uncontrollable urination and was peeing every 5 minutes, we took her to the vet for her initial check-up the day we brought her home and returned 2 days later because we thought the constant urination was not normal. The vet told us that puppies her size (1.2lbs) would pee alot because of small bladders...well 55 pees a day was not normal in my opinion so we brought in a urine sample and it was determined she had a bladder infection. She went on antibiotics for 2 weeks and during that time things improved and she was only peeing 15 times a day (we kept a pee chart). Anyways long story short the vet didnt think it was necessary to do a follow-up urinanalysis even though we requested it...we didnt think anymore about this until we got the blood work done before her scheduled spay. We demanded they give us a copy of her bloodwork and I googled the elevated CREA and UREA plus the extremely low urine concentration 0.5 and was shocked that it said this was signs of kidney disease, especially since she was urinating so frequently. We got her urinalysis originally done when she was 8 weeks old and it contained the same information. We were so upset that our vet didnt pursue this issue from the beginning because all of the signs were there that she might have early signs of kidney disease and the amount of damage may have been decreased. I immediately called the vet we are currently using (a friend is a vet tech there) and had the necessary testing done and it was determined that she still had a serious bladder infection and that bladder infections once into the kidneys may take several courses of antibiotics. So now the question that remains is whether her kidney disease is a congential issue or whether it is damage she sustained from a bladder infection she had from when she was 8 weeks old until she was about 1 year old (it took 3 months of treatment before she was finally deemed to not have the infection). According to our current vet (who is awesome) Lola only has around 25% kidney function. She seems fine now the only problem is that her urine is not concentrated like it should be, but she is now on a special diet and that seems to have helped the other elevations originally found in her blood. She drinks and urinates like a normal dog now but we still do bi-monthly blood and urine tests. 
Sorry about the long story but I felt I needed to explain more about my situation. We are fearful about the spay but definitely want it done. If the vet decides to pursue the spay we are going to be taking extra precautions and do 24-hour pre-surgery intervenus fluids and another 48-hours of fluids afterwards. The plus to doing the spay is that at the same time we can do a kidney biopsy to determine whether the kidney disease is congenital or not.
Jenna


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