When Will My Pregnant Dog Go Into Labor?

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Doctor Aimee Beger, and I'm a veterinarian, and today we're going to talk about how to know if your pregnant dog is going into labor. Typically what you'll see is your dog may have a decreased appetite or stop eating all together about a day before she is going to give birth. Her temperature is something that you can monitor at home. You want to keep in mind that the average pregnancy in dogs is about sixty three days, and so, if you're at about the two month mark, you can start to take her temperature rectally. If her temperature drops below a hundred degrees, and if you see her licking under her tail, going into a small room or a closet, hiding, nesting, that may be signs that she's about to give birth to her first puppy in approximately one to two hours. Your dog may start to strain, and you may see something like a fluid or a liquid come out, which is called the placenta, or afterbirth. Sometimes you'll see the afterbirth before the puppy. And if you see that, and you don't see a puppy within a couple hours, you definitely want to take your...your dog into the veterinarian. There can be complications with pregnancy, which would require a c-section. Those complications could be that your puppy is breech, or...or not coming out head or front leg first, which is normal. Or that you may have one of the dog breeds that are pre-disposed to having c-sections, such as Bulldogs, Shih-Tzus, and other large headed dogs. Other things that you can do for your pregnant dog is to just insure that she is removing the afterbirth, or the placenta, from the puppies. And she will do that by licking the sac around each puppy. If she doesn't do that, you'll want to make sure that you do remove that for each puppy."