signs

It's an interminable wait when you're wondering if your bitch is pregnant. The mating happened a couple of weeks in the past, the scan isn't due until a couple of weeks in the future. You watch your bitch with a keen eye, looking for changes in appearance or behaviour, clues, any little sign that she might be a little different than usual, not her normal self, pregnant.

And so we are doing with Keksi now.  For Keksi's last litter, she was at home with Daniel & Jim at this stage and I kept getting reports that she didn't seem different to them.  By the time she came to me for her scan a month or so after mating, I was quite confident I saw a little sign - a little ruff of fur sticking out from her sides like a skirt.

At the moment Keksi is staying with us and I have my eyes peeled for that ruff of fur.  She is super-fit right now and with very little coat, and I don't know if those 2 elements will cancel each other out: she is slim & fit, so it will be easier to spot any little swelling of the belly, while on the other hand, she has no coat to speak of, so there is no fur to stick out.

Definitely no fur skirt here - check out the curve of her thigh.  But if we were looking for shoulder ruffs, we'd be in business.

One sure sign of pregnancy is a sudden voracious appetite.  (I'm pretty sure that's true in human females as well as bitches of other species, actually.)  Last time around, Daniel reported an astonishing bin raid while Keksi was left alone for 20 minutes.

That was about 20 or 25 days post-mating - approximately where we are now.  I certainly have not given her any opportunity to ransack the kitchen while unsupervised, as she has been known to do so even when not pregnant.  But for a few days now she has been grabbing every opportunity to frantically hoover up little twigs on her walks and she then proceeds to chew them up like they are gravy bones. 

Do I take this as a sign?  I'm trying really hard not to.  For all I know she is ordinarily a twig nibbler, so I'm keeping a lid on my expectations at this point.  From the anecdotes of others, it seems that matings don't work as often as they do, so there is a lot of disappointment involved.  It's frustrating not only for me, and people like me, who have spent a lot of time & money preparing for a litter of puppies who don't arrive, but imagine how crushing for those people waiting for their puppy.  It's really awful. 

So don't you get your hopes up, and I will try to control mine too.

In the meantime, should Keksi don a fur skirt, you'll be the first to know.