Dogs are pregnant for about 63 days, roughly nine weeks, counted from ovulation. Counted from the day she was mated the answer is far less precise, because sperm can survive a week inside her. Enter your date below for a whelping window and a dated plan.
Progesterone timing is the only way to get a date you can plan surgery around.
An estimate from published gestation ranges, not a diagnosis or a birth plan. Your vet should confirm the pregnancy and the dates.
How long are dogs pregnant?
About 63 days from ovulation, but the answer depends entirely on which day you count from, and the spread is wider than most people expect.
| Counting from | Gestation | How reliable |
|---|---|---|
| Ovulation | About 63 days | The standard figure, and accurate when progesterone testing pinned the date |
| LH surge or first progesterone rise | 64 to 66 days | Very reliable |
| First day of diestrus | 56 to 58 days | Reliable if cytology was done |
| First mating | 58 to 72 days | Weak. Sperm survive 7 days or more, so mating day is not conception day |
The MSD Veterinary Manual puts it bluntly: breeding dates and conception dates do not line up closely enough to predict whelping accurately. If the timing matters, and it does for any breed that may need a caesarean, your vet has to time ovulation with progesterone tests.
Confirming the pregnancy
A calculator cannot tell you a dog is pregnant. Neither can a swollen belly: a false pregnancy mimics the signs convincingly, and an open pyometra, a life-threatening womb infection, can look similar to an owner. Confirmation is a veterinary job:
- Ultrasound at 25 to 35 days confirms pregnancy and shows heartbeats. It stays useful later for checking the puppies are alive and not in distress.
- X-ray from about 45 days, once the skeletons have calcified enough to see.
- X-ray in the last week is the most accurate way to count puppies, which is how you know when she has finished whelping.
Feeding a pregnant dog
Her needs stay close to normal for the first two thirds of the pregnancy. From the last third, increase food by about 20 to 30%, building toward 40 to 60% more by whelping, using a growth or puppy formula, divided into smaller meals as the puppies crowd her stomach.
Avoid letting her get fat, too. Over-conditioning, especially with a small litter, produces oversized puppies and a harder birth.
Worming and vaccination during pregnancy
Roundworm larvae pass to puppies in the womb and in milk, so vets commonly worm the mother through late pregnancy and nursing with a product licensed for it, such as fenbendazole. Ask your vet for the protocol rather than using a shop wormer.
Do not give modified live vaccines during pregnancy. Vaccination should be sorted before mating, so she passes good immunity on in her first milk.
Labour: what normal looks like
A drop in her rectal temperature to around 98.8°F (36.7 to 37.8°C) usually means whelping within 8 to 24 hours. Take her temperature twice a day in the last week so you catch it. Our dog temperature checker shows where a reading sits.
Then labour runs in stages: restlessness, panting, nesting and shivering come first and can last several hours; then active straining and the first puppy; then placentas, with puppies arriving in bursts and rest periods in between.
When pregnancy or whelping is an emergency
At any point in the pregnancy, call your vet about: going off her food, vomiting, collapse or marked lethargy, a fever, abdominal pain, or any foul-smelling, pus-like or bloody discharge. Those can mean a uterine infection, a dead puppy, a twisted uterus or pregnancy toxaemia, none of which wait.
During whelping, call immediately, out of hours if necessary, for any of these:
- hard straining for 30 minutes with no puppy produced
- more than 30 minutes between puppies while she is actively contracting
- more than 2 hours between puppies when she is resting and more are still expected
- weak or active labour for over 4 hours with nothing born
- whelping still going on after 24 hours
- no labour 24 hours after the temperature drop
- green, black or foul-smelling discharge before the first puppy
- heavy bleeding, or a puppy visibly stuck at the vulva
- restless panting for more than 12 hours that never turns into labour
- she is overdue with no labour: past 70 days from mating, 67 from the LH surge, 66 from ovulation, or 59 from the first day of diestrus
After the puppies arrive
The dangerous window does not close at birth.
- Eclampsia (milk fever) peaks 2 to 4 weeks after whelping, when milk production is at its heaviest. Restlessness, panting, stiffness, tremors, wobbliness or seizures are an emergency. It is treatable quickly and fatal if ignored.
- Retained placenta or puppy: count placentas against puppies, and tell your vet if the numbers do not match or a dark, smelly discharge continues.
- Metritis: fever, foul discharge, a dull mother who stops feeding the litter.
- Mastitis: a hot, hard, painful mammary gland.
- Chilled puppies: normal body temperature changes week by week, so there is no single number. Week 1 is 95 to 99°F, weeks 2 to 3 are 97 to 100°F, and week 4 is 99 to 101°F, with the nest kept warm enough to hold them above 97°F. A chilled puppy must be rewarmed slowly over 30 to 60 minutes and must never be fed until it is warm.
Breeds that usually need a planned caesarean
In flat-faced breeds such as the Bulldog, French Bulldog, Boston Terrier and Pug, and in some toy and large-headed breeds, natural delivery often fails, and waiting to find out is how litters are lost. These pregnancies need the surgery booked in advance.
The date cannot come from a mating date. Your vet sets it from serial progesterone testing, where a fall below 2 ng/mL signals labour within about 24 hours, usually alongside fetal measurements on ultrasound. Elective surgery is considered safe after 62 days of gestation. Too early and the puppies’ lungs are not ready.
Frequently asked questions
How long are dogs pregnant for?
Can I work out the due date from the mating date?
What are the first signs a dog is pregnant?
Should I give my pregnant dog calcium?
How many puppies will she have?
Where these numbers come from
- Gestation lengths: the MSD Veterinary Manual on whelping (56 to 58 days from diestrus, 64 to 66 from the LH surge, 58 to 72 from first breeding, and the temperature drop 8 to 24 hours before whelping) and the American Kennel Club for the 63 day figure from ovulation.
- Emergency thresholds: the MSD Veterinary Manual on dystocia, including gestation beyond 70 days from a known breeding date.
- Calcium and eclampsia: MSD on eclampsia in small animals.
- Feeding: Merck Veterinary Manual feeding practices.
- Confirming pregnancy and counting puppies: Merck on pregnancy determination.