Has anyone ever had a false positive on a Relaxin test? I know of a few false negatives. I had a positive on a relaxin on day 40, but I am not seeing any signs of pregnancy, and we are only 2 weeks away.

It is my understanding that there are no false positives. However, because like you I was concerned about reliability when I was looking at using the test I did a bunch of research. What I found out is that the test will be positive for pregnancy but that the bitch may reabsorb between 30 and 45 days. My two guesses are she is either carrying a small litter or she has reabsorbed. Good Luck.

You can have a false negative on the relaxin test but not a false positive!!
Could be she only has one or two puppies....

I actually thought I had a false positive last year on a relaxin test. Did the test on day 35 and it was positive - but so light that I wasn't sure if I was seeing it correctly. Well, no signs of pregnancy so I assumed it was not positive. About a week and a half before her due date I noticed she had mammary development - not a lot but some. She had 3 puppies.

If you had a positive result I would guess either it's a small litter or she reabsorbed. Good luck!

Hi Liz,

when you girl only had 3 puppies, did she still appear like she wasn't carrying any, other than slight mammory change ? Did she still retain a waistline to the end before she whelped ?

My girl is due to whelp her litter in 8 more days and she still has a waisline, no visable swelling to speak of and her mammory development is slightly different but not enough to make me think she is preggers.

I"ve had 3 puppy litters in the past and my girl got fairly big that last couple weeks so this is why I am wondering if she reabsorbed somewhere along the line.

Anybody else have similar experiences where their bitch did not look pregnant all along then she ended up whelping a normal litter ?

I had one that had only one pup and I told the vet this dog isn't pg after all but she did have the one pup, looked like she normally did upon delivery.
Aloha,
jackie

so did your girl whelp her single puppy naturally at home Jackie ? I always heard thoat 9 times out of 10, the bitch carrying a single puppy needs to have a c-section.

Ok, here is another question, If a dam is only carrying 1 puppy, will she still show signs of pending whelping, such as nesting and getting restless ? Can one take the dam's temp to see if it lowers like you would normally do with a full litter prior to her getting ready to start the contraction process ?

No she did not whelp the pup at home normally, we waited to see if she would initiate the whelping process but by day 66 from progestrone nothing, no temp drop no nesting so the vet felt it was time to take the pup out.
Aloha,
jackie

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

Replying to:

so did your girl whelp her single puppy naturally at home Jackie ? I always heard thoat 9 times out of 10, the bitch carrying a single puppy needs to have a c-section.

Ok, here is another question, If a dam is only carrying 1 puppy, will she still show signs of pending whelping, such as nesting and getting restless ? Can one take the dam's temp to see if it lowers like you would normally do with a full litter prior to her getting ready to start the contraction process ?

My girl did not even look pg until the last few days and then it was barely noticable - I would have thought she was just a little heavy if I didn't know different.

Hi Liz,

So did your girl show signs of nesting and typical behavior prior to her whelping those 3 puppies, with temp dropping like it normally does ? Thanks, this is very interesting to me.

She showed signs of whelping (nesting and restless) the day of only - not days before like sometimes happens. She delivered naturally without problems.

My girls will start their nesting a week before whelping so by the time they actually whelp, I'm plain tired from being on puppy alert.

Can anyone who has had SINGLE PUPPY litters please tell me if your dam went through the nesting stage just before she was due to whelp ? Thanks !!

My very first try at breeding Goldens some years ago resulted in a single puppy litter. What an learning experiance that was!

When we x-rayed, the pup was still very small. My vet told me to expect a couple of extra days before delivery and true to expection,she went about 5 days past her expected delivery date.

I don't recall so much in the way of nesting but
I did see a temp drop late on Friday night, by the next morning she still had not begun any indication she was about to deliver, called the vet and was told to sit tight for a while longer. She never showed any signs of stress so we waited.

On Sunday afternoon, Mom stood up, vomited, had a single contraction and layed back down. I waited about 20 minutes, didn't see any other activity so off to the emergency clinic we went. An ultrasound showed a heart beat so they C sectioned and delivered a boy about twice the size of a normal Golden at delivery. He turned out to be the love of my life!

Lessons learned, with a small/single pup litter you really need to be on top of things and be prepared to do a C-section. In retrospect I should have opted to take her in that Saterday and have her c-sectioned, would have been a lot cheaper and in my inexperiance I could have lost the pup and Mother.

There were some great things to learn from a single pup. The "one on one" between mother and pup was fascinating. She was an obessed mother to the point of giving him dermatitis on his belly. We were able to see very clearly how mom's discipline and nurture.

We did find that throughout his life he was not pain tolerant which I've attributed that to not having the conditioning from litter mates nipping back and forth. Unless you can socialize it in another litter, I would hesitate to place a single pup in a home with small children.

Thanks for sharing your story RLD !!

We just had a singleton 8 weeks ago.Boy did I ever learn alot! My girl did not nest to speak of, her temp. dropped slightly but never stayed down. I am told that with small litters sometimes the hormones don't work like they normally would and they don't go into labor or have contractions. We opted for a C-section did progesterone test to make sure she was ready as well we knew exactly which day she was due to whelp as she was bred only 1 time (AI). Best of all we were able to book the section and avoided emergency vet bill! Best of luck I hope you have one or two in there.

Diane

My understanding is that the puppies themselves produce the oxytocin that stimulates contractions.

Small litters/small puppies don't generate much of the hormone so they may not start labor on thier own.

If I had known then what I know now I would agree that you did the smart thing with the C-section.

The "Next time" is on the not so distant horizon and I'll take the high road with a litter of extremes in either direction, large or small.

As a side note, I was at a seminar that my repro vet did a few months ago and he made the statement that litters that are whelped naturally average about a 75% survival rate while litters that are C-section average 100%.

When you think about those statistic, a managed C-section can pay for itself. I don't know what the long term impact to the mother is for multiple litters by C-section but for a single litter at least, I would think that it's a lot less stress on her overall?

I'd be interested to hear comments from those more experianced than I.

It sure seems like bitches are either easy whelpers or they tend to need C-sections more times than not. I'm sure some of it is genetics and how the bitch is built. Too compact of a bitch = not quite enough room for a large litter of puppies to accomodate an easy route down the pipe come whelping time. There must be many reasons why some bitches tend to need E-sections. It'd be interesting to hear from some vets who are also breeders on the survival rate of babies with bitches whelping naturally versus bitches who go in for C-Sections, Emergency or not.

I think I am stuck with an Emergency Section one way or the other because our girl is due to whelp on Thanksgiving Day. Hopefully she will get busy and "Show Me The Babies"

While I don't like loosing puppies, it does hurt me, it hurts me more to think that i'm cutting into my dog when it is not needed, I will at all costs try and let them whelp normally even if it means I loose some of the whelps, it is major surgery for the dog so I will not put them through that unless it has to be done that way, my girls are like my kids and the pups they have i've not met yet so who should I be more concerned about?.. JMHO
Aloha,
jackie

--- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- ---

Replying to:

My understanding is that the puppies themselves produce the oxytocin that stimulates contractions.

Small litters/small puppies don't generate much of the hormone so they may not start labor on thier own.

If I had known then what I know now I would agree that you did the smart thing with the C-section.

The "Next time" is on the not so distant horizon and I'll take the high road with a litter of extremes in either direction, large or small.

As a side note, I was at a seminar that my repro vet did a few months ago and he made the statement that litters that are whelped naturally average about a 75% survival rate while litters that are C-section average 100%.

When you think about those statistic, a managed C-section can pay for itself. I don't know what the long term impact to the mother is for multiple litters by C-section but for a single litter at least, I would think that it's a lot less stress on her overall?

I'd be interested to hear comments from those more experianced than I.

Hi Antsy,

I'll share my story...I had my first singleton litter in May. I had done a relaxin test which showed positive. My girl certainly looked pregnant and I thought for sure she would be carrying a decent sized litter, not huge, but decent sized. Imagine my surprise when I took her in for the x-ray to count puppies the week before she was due, and only saw the one puppy on the x-ray.
As the due date approached, she never did show any nesting behavior, and there was only a very slight temp. drop which would go back up to normal. I wasn't sure if that drop was ever going to happen...and it didn't. The first due date came and went and then the second due date came and went and there was nothing happening. No nesting, no temp. drop, and no signs of labor at all. Very frustrating and scary! So because her due dates had gone by and there was nothing, my vet opted for doing a c-section. I'm glad we didn't wait it out to see what would happen, as the puppy was big and still way up in the horn. Mom and pup came out of it fine. My vet also said that sometimes with small litters the mother just doesn't produce enough of the hormone to get the labor process kick started.

Good luck to you with your situation. I hope you have a positive outcome.
Kathy

Oops...I meant to say that a one or two puppy litter doesn't produce enough hormone to kick start the labor process.

Kathy

Antsy, are you the OP? It sounds like you don't know if your bitch is pregnant. If she's due in 8 days, you can x-ray now to see. OP, I'd recommend the same rather than waiting for nesting. I usually x-ray on day 55 from ovulation, but if you want to get a better idea for size (like is it too big to birth) then later is better. You can always pull a progesterone too to see if she's close enough for a section if she's not nesting. Once progesterone is less than 2 ng/mL, whelping should be within 24 hours. Good luck

What's OP stand for ?? Ordinarily Patient, Obsessed bout Pregnancy, Obviously Paturbed, On Patrol, On Paxil, Overindulged on Pumpkin Pie ??

Seriously, I just made an appointment to take our girl in for radiographs this Saturday so we'll know one way or the other. We know the exact day she would whelp due to she was only bred AI one time, progesterone tested 3 times so we know post ovulation. My question is, because she is due on Thanksgiving Day, would it be too dangerous to schedule a C-section the day before Thanksgiving so it's not considered an emergency C-section or do it the day after Thanksgiving be pushing it as far as safety with the singleton be born 1 day before due date or 1 day post due date ?? I"ve never dealt with c-sections before.

I guess it could be any of those, but I was referring to the Original Poster! :)

If I were in your shoes, I would talk to the vet when you do the x-ray and figure how long it takes to get progesterone results back before scheduling a section. Once progesterone is 2ng/ml, you can safely take the pup. If you can do same day, you can pull blood on Wed morning and do the section that afternoon. If she's still quite high, you will at least be able to get through Turkey Day and possibly schedule for Friday. Heck, if your vet is really dedicated, he/she may even agree to do a Turkey Day section!!

Good luck!

Thanks, we may need it since the vet I really like and has alot of experience doing many C-sections is taking the week of Thanksgiving off which they deserve. I have my emergency clinic lined up but am looking for a good vet clinic who has lots of experience doing C-sections during regular business hours. We all know how important it is to find a vet who knows what type of anesthesia to give a pregnant dam so they don't overdose and kill the puppies on their way out or the don't try as hard to revive the struggling ones like we would do to the puppies we help bring into the world. I've worked for as long as 10 minutes trying to revive a little boy puppy one time and by golly, he finally came around and turned out to be my pick boy at 8 weeks old. I don't know that a busy vet clinic would take the time to recessitate a struggling new born puppy when they are busy pulling puppies out of the dam.

That is NOT true of a dedicated repro vet. My repro vet assembles a team of experienced people and tries to have one person for every puppy, and believe me, they do not give up! However, if you end up with an emergency situation, it may be just you and the vet. Someone has to stitch up Mom, so you end up trying to get all the pups going. I lost a litter of three that way. I was inexperienced and didn't know what to do, the vet was tired (it was after midnight) and not a repro specialist. Since then I have always X-rayed to see how many pups are coming and, if it is a small litter, scheduled a C-section. I think the advice you have been given is good. Try to find a vet who is willing to come out on Thanksgiving just in case, but do a progesterone on Wednesday, to see if you need to do the C-section earlier, then if you can wait, schedule the C-section for Friday.

Oh, how I wish for a dedicated repo vet in our area but for now, we have to be very careful in the vets we use for any type of surgery. Luckily, there is an busy emergency clinic who do alot of C-sections and another busy clinic that lets you do walk ins during certain hours of the day. If the progesterone test is done wednesday morning, I can find out the results wednesday night at best. I'm fearful of taking the puppies 1 day too early and almost think it would be safer to do the Section on Friday, after Thanksgiving.
Thanks for everyone's input on this matter. I was really hoping not to break my lucky streak of my girls whelping naturally all this time.