Management of your dog’s reproductive health

  

Date Posted: 7/8/2014 5:03:13 AM

Posted By: Osti  Membership Level: Silver  Total Points: 944

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The main purpose of managing the reproductive health of dogs is to maximize on profits for you.
There are some indices that one needs to take note of and the first is the onset of puberty of your dog. This starts at six to nine months depending on the breed of your dog. Smaller breeds mature faster than bigger breeds since they reach their body mass index faster and their brain also matures faster. These are necessary for reproductive maturity to enable proper hormonal production for maturation of the reproductive system. For dogs like German Shepherds they reach puberty at one and a half years. The main target for these dogs is to reduce the onset of puberty to normal.

Dogs are non-seasonal breeders but the inter-estrus period (period between heat manifestations) is usually between four to six months. This means that a female dog has 3 estrous cycles per year. The average inter-estrus period should be about four and a half months.

Dogs usually take approximately 60 to 65 days for gestation post ovulation. The average period is 63 days. Always ensure you do strategic vaccination for instance; female dogs when being mated are vaccinated one day prior or after mating. This transmits immunity into the puppies. House pregnant female dogs together or individually. Provide them with balanced diet, proteins, vitamins A and D and make sure you don’t overfeed them. Provide adequate exercise to the female dogs. When close to whelping, provide a clean area for whelping.

The average litter size for dogs is seven. When your dog has fewer litters it may be an indicator of infertility disease and when they are very many check the mammary glands to make sure there is no runting (stunted growth as some would call it). Proper care should be taken to the puppies

to ensure their warmth.

Neonatal losses should be at a minimal with still birth rates not over 3%. Culling rates should not exceed 1 %. To avoid these losses maintain a clean house and environment around the dog and isolate any sick animals from the rest.
The puppies should be weaned at age of 6 to 8 weeks.

In controlling diseases the puppies should be dewormed at 2 weeks using a tablet. Vaccination of dogs against disease is done in some order. The diseases to be vaccinated against include parvovirus, infectious hepatitis, parainfluenza, canine distemper (airborne and is the most common viral dog disease), rabies and leptospirosis (zoonotic and most common bacterial dog disease).

Parvovirus vaccination is done at 6 weeks then 3 weeks later the second parvovirus vaccination is done. Distemper, hepatitis, leptospirosis, parvovirus, rabies and parainfluenza vaccination is done at 12 weeks. After these you can do annual vaccination. Statistics has it that dogs vaccinated against these diseases which are the most common dog diseases have lesser visits to the vet’s clinic. In control of diseases from your dogs make sure there are frequent visits by your vet or to your vet starting at 3 months then later do a 6 month interval. Make sure your visits coincide with your dog’s annual vaccinations. For breeders, when there are no sicknesses make sure your dogs are always screened for diseases such as brucellosis.

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