Dog depressed or just settling down?

Dortilolma

My husband thinks our 9 month old lab mix might be depressed. I'm not sure. We've had her nearly 3 months now and she had her first heat about 2 months back.

She is fine in the evenings, can still get excitable, she's very active on walks, would eat everything if we let her and can still be quite snugly and playful.

That being said, she seems to be sleeping a lot more than usual. She keeps to her bed for quite a lot of the day. She doesn't always come running to greet us when we come back into the room like she used to, especially in the mornings, she generally seems to have less energy and she gets bored of playing with her toys a lot quicker.

I'm thinking that she is just getting older and settling down. My husband did suggest she might be getting bored of her toys so I'm planning on getting her new ones today.

I was wondering at what ages did people find their dogs start coming out of the puppy phase? Or, if they got an older dog did it take about 2 -3 months for them to properly settle in the new home?

DBB

When did she start getting the blues?
I have to ask this, please don't be offended, but are you sure there's no chance she's pregnant?
If you're 100% sure, there's a possibility that this is a false pregnancy.
She may of course be just settling down, but at her age, and given the timing of her last heat, I wouldn't be betting on it! Labs and their crosses usually start to settle at about 10 years of age

borderlinemeath

The timing is spot on for false pregnancy, our girl used to get them before she was spayed and she would be very melancholy and would take to her bed with her favourite toys which were her substitute puppies. She would still love her walks and a bit of play if she was out of the bed but then she'd take herself back and mind her toys whilst giving "woe is me" looks. She would snap out of it within about 2 weeks and be back to her normal self then. It hasn't happened since she was spayed.

Censorsh!t

Never knew about false pregnancies!

We got our dog about 2 years ago when she was around one, and she still hasn't calmed down!
I would have thought this behaviour was odd, especially not coming to greet ye, but then again, I never knew about the false pregnancies.
I presume if she's eating okay and going to the toilet like usual, then it's not a huge worry for now, unless she keeps at it.

Dortilolma

The blues have been going on for a week or so.
If she were pregnant it would be quite a surprised. I'd never heard of a false pregnancy but I've done a bit of a Google on it and it seems to be about right.

I need to take her to the vet for a check up so I'll probably be doing that very soon.

sillysmiles

What do you do for phantom pregnancies?

DBB

There's only one sure fire cure for them. That is to let her see out the phantom pregnancy, wait until she's mid cycle, and get her spayed.
They're quite distressing for a lot of bitches, so spaying them is the kindest thing for recurrent cases.

gimmick

Can i ask how a false/phantom pregnancy happens?

Mam of 4

DBB wrote: »

There's only one sure fire cure for them. That is to let her see out the phantom pregnancy, wait until she's mid cycle, and get her spayed.
They're quite distressing for a lot of bitches, so spaying them is the kindest thing for recurrent cases.

This .

Our poor Westie had phantom pregnancies, would go crying looking for her babies -toys- to put in the basket with her. She would end up lying on them all the poor girl.

Now she's spayed, glad to say no more phantom pregnancies

DBB

gimmick wrote: »

Can i ask how a false/phantom pregnancy happens?

I don't know if it's really understood why it happens, but for some reason a hormonal imbalance of the maternal hormones (progesterone and/or prolactin) causes the female's body to think it's pregnant at about the same time she would have approached giving birth to pups had she gone into pup at her last heat. For a lot of bitches, the signs are just behavioural (nesting, restlessness, depression), but some bitches develop a swollen tummy and produce milk!

Sobko

Do plenty of research on spaying and don't rush into making that call just yet.

Apologies but I cannot post links to reading material. Kinda stupid rule boards.ie

If you can ensure the dog is housed inside during heat cycles and does not come into contact with males you could consider keeping her intact. We had a GSD bitch who lived a perfectly healthy life til the age of 14.

DBB

Sobko wrote: »

Apologies but I cannot post links to reading material. Kinda stupid rule boards.ie

I don't know if you were about before this rule was brought in a few months ago, but it was introduced to stop spambots posting links to crap, which we used to have to deal with multiple times every day on each forum.. it was an absolute pain for everyone. This rule has stopped this altogether. Just so you know that the rule wasn't pulled out of the air just to annoy people.
If you feel strongly about it, this is not the place to air your concerns. The feedback forum is the correct forum to raise such topics.

If you can ensure the dog is housed inside during heat cycles and does not come into contact with males you could consider keeping her intact. We had a GSD bitch who lived a perfectly healthy life til the age of 14.

That's as may be, but it does not address the distinct welfare problem caused to the bitch who experiences false pregnancies, which is what this discussion is about. I'd rather this thread stayed on-track rather than being dragged off into a "to spay or not to spay" argument, because there are so many of those already available for reading on the forum.
Please folks, bear this in mind before posting in this thread.
Do not reply to this post on thread.
Thanks,
DBB

borderlinemeath

Our females false pregnancy was never too bad, the worst she did was nest and gather her "pups" and be out of sorts, but some can be very severe. I know one JRT who got aggressive towards her owner who couldn't get near her when she was affected. Imagine trying to comfort your dog who you knew was out of sorts due to hormones yet not be able to approach her?

When we got our rescue boy we saw a milder version of it, she only had one false pregnancy but took herself further away and would be slightly aggressive towards him, yet they had become firm friends. Its not nice to experience something like that. So she was neutered in the following months.

There's also research showing that bitches that suffer from false pregnancy are at a higher risk of developing pyometra. I'm on my phone so I can't link the articles but pyo is a huge risk to intact bitches, so even if the false pregnancy isn't distressing enough, the increased risk of pyo would be the deciding factor for me if I had an intact bitch who suffered from it.

Sobko

Canine False Pregnancy by Kelly Roper is a nice concise read. You can google it.

muddypaws

One of my girls, Sky, was spayed when she was younger (she's now almost 10) but she would still have false seasons and phantom pregnancies. They missed a bit when she was spayed. Discussed it with my vet many times, but the timing was never right for them to open her and try and find the bit that had been left behind (not by this vet I hasten to add). However, last year she had her false season, and then developed pyometra, and so had to have an emergency operation, thankfully it was successful, and they managed to find the errant piece of tissue and remove it as well. She used to get very hormonal when going through the false seasons and pregnancies, she can be a stroppy bitch at the best of times with other dogs, but we've had no fights or aggression since the op, and she seems much happier in herself. She also seems to want more exercise, which is something I've only just realised may be related to the op, she didn't work for a couple of years as she didn't seem to enjoy it, but is back out in harness again this winter, and is eager to go, that could be a coincidence of course.

shakencat

i have a 13 month lab cross,
she went into heat at 9 months, (she was weird, quiet, didn't run through the park leading up to it, always in bed, didn't care for fun, when we walked she'd stay beside me- i actually thought she finally copped not to run away hahah)

after the heat she was back to her normal self, running, jumping, messing..

a month later she had false pregnancy - didn't eat for 4/5 days the poor thing. (well unless she got 5* meals -i am guilty of giving her anything once she eats!) didn't want to walk, play, attention.

anyway,
that passed...

she's now in her second heat (very fast i know-planned on getting her spayed after her first heat but with the false pregnancy and then all of a sudden another heat!!! didn't get the chance)

saying that however, she is normal through this heat.. no different to her normal puppy self..


id get her checked for false pregnancy.. my pup had swollen nipples and when the vet squeezed, milk came out..

poor thing must have been so confused.