Pregnancy in Dogs: What to Expect Week by Week

Most of a dog's pregnancy proceeds without help from anybody. Knowing the timeline is not so that you can step in; it is so that you can recognise the few moments when something has gone wrong.

Week by week

Week	What you will see
1 to 3	Nothing reliable. Some dogs are slightly quieter.
3 to 4	A vet can confirm it: by ultrasound from about day 25 to 30. Some dogs eat less for a few days.
5 to 6	The belly starts to grow; nipples larger and pinker; appetite rises. Start increasing her food.
7 to 8	Clearly pregnant. Puppies can often be felt moving. From about day 55, an X-ray can count them.
9	Nesting and restlessness. Her temperature drops about 12 to 24 hours before labour.

Weeks 3 to 4

A vet can feel the puppies at around 28 days in experienced hands, and an ultrasound is reliable from about 25 to 30 days. A scan confirms the pregnancy and that the puppies are alive, but it is poor at counting them.

Weeks 7 to 8

An X-ray from about day 55 is the reliable way to count the puppies, because by then their skeletons show. That count matters on the day: knowing there are six means knowing when one has not arrived.

Week 9

Nesting, restlessness, looking for quiet corners. Appetite often drops in the last day or two. Her rectal temperature falling to about 37°C or below usually comes 12 to 24 hours before labour, so taking it twice a day in the final week is the most useful warning you have.

Feeding through pregnancy

• First six weeks: her normal amount. Overfeeding early produces fat puppies and a harder birth.
• From week 5 or 6: increase gradually, to about one and a half times normal by the end.
• The last third, and while nursing: switch to a puppy food, which carries the energy and calcium she needs.
• Late on: smaller, more frequent meals, because a crowded belly leaves no room for a large one.
• No calcium supplements unless your vet prescribes them. Supplementing during pregnancy can make eclampsia after the birth more likely, not less.

Getting ready

Put out a whelping box about two weeks before the due date, somewhere quiet, dim and warm, so she settles in it rather than choosing a wardrobe on the night. The sides should be low enough for her to step over and high enough to keep the puppies in.

Have ready: clean towels, gentle warmth that cannot overheat the puppies (and works through a power cut), a thermometer, kitchen scales, and your vet's night-time number written down.

Deworming her during pregnancy, on your vet's schedule, reduces the worms that pass to the puppies.

Labour

Stage one, up to about 12 hours: restlessness, panting, nesting, shivering, refusing food. No visible contractions yet.

Stage two: visible straining, and puppies. Usually one every 30 to 60 minutes, though a rest of up to two hours between puppies can be normal if she is comfortable and not straining.

Stage three: an afterbirth after each puppy. Count them; one left inside causes infection.

Call a vet immediately if

• She strains hard for 20 to 30 minutes and no puppy comes
• Two hours pass between puppies while she is still straining, or more than four hours of rest when puppies are known to remain
• She passes 68 days without labour
• Green or black discharge appears before the first puppy. After a puppy it is normal; before, it suggests the placenta has separated
• Heavy fresh bleeding
• A puppy is visible and stuck for more than a few minutes
• She collapses, trembles severely or is clearly distressed
• She stops labouring while you know puppies remain, which is why the X-ray count matters

After the birth

• Weigh each puppy every day for the first two weeks. Steady gain is the best sign that feeding is working
• Check that every puppy is feeding, not only the strongest
• Keep them warm: newborns cannot control their own temperature
• Watch the mother for fever, a foul discharge, a hot, painful teat, or refusing food

Eclampsia is the emergency owners rarely expect: usually in the first weeks of nursing, with restlessness, panting, stiffness, trembling and then fits, as milk production drains her calcium. It is fatal without treatment and responds quickly to it, so it needs a vet at once, day or night.

Worth saying plainly

Breeding is not a small undertaking, and an emergency caesarean at 2am is not an unusual outcome. Anyone breeding on purpose should have the money for one set aside before mating, not discovered on the night. For everyone else, spaying removes this whole category of risk, along with womb infections and much of the risk of breast tumours.

Every Skeepy Pet HMO plan includes unlimited vet consultations and covers emergencies within its limits, at any vet clinic in Nigeria, so a call at 2am is a clinical decision rather than a financial one.