A psychological pregnancy or pseudopregnancy is not a disease or pathology but it is a cause for alarm as it can bring serious consequences and complications to our dog.
Pseudopregnancy is a physiological condition or state that the bitch can go through after its period of heat. This state is also experienced by the wolves that accompany the alpha female so that when she has young, she is not the only one who feeds them, but rather that the other females of the litter generate milk to be able to feed the cubs and thus ensure their survival.
This type of condition, as we said, arises from a hormonal imbalance that the female suffers after heat. Females, believing they are pregnant, even adopt certain objects or other beings and treat them as if they were their own cubs. A fairly common example is that they “adopt” a stuffed animal as a puppy and treat it as such.
For this reason, sterilization is so extremely important in this term, since almost 6 out of 10 unsterilized bitches suffer psychological pregnancies and warn that after suffering one of these psychological pregnant women the bitch can begin to suffer them frequently after each period of heat.
This type of imbalance causes strong changes in the bitch, from physical to psychological, even influencing her behavior. Bitches can feel in a state of restlessness and even feel deep sadness due to this type of imbalance that, clearly, will have a very negative impact on them, so an early veterinary diagnosis is important.
It must be understood that for the bitch her puppies are the most important as they symbolize the perpetuation of her genes and even an instinctive survival mode. Therefore, the effort that is invested in a pregnancy together with parental care, makes the dog feel in a state of restlessness and fatigue and even move to a more aggressive phase.
But, thanks to current advances, diagnosing and treating pseudopregnancy is becoming easier and more common.
If you want to know more about this topic, keep reading.
