Female bleeding at 51 days pregnant I am worried - Page 1

My 6 year old GSD female is 51 days pregnant,She just started to bleed dark  red almost black.she was a little frantic when it happened but has calmed down now.i think she has stopped now.Do I have cause for concern? Any advice will be appreciated.

Shirley 

 call your vet

get her to your vet NOW

Your bitch is probably aborting her litter. I had a bitch do this, once. I rushed her to a specialist 150 miles away.. reproductive specialist, well known. Carol Bardwick is her name and she's in Escondido, CA. I'm not sure if she is a veterinarian or a vet tech.. anyway.. She suggested that the bitch might have a mycoplasma or ureaplasma.. probably mycoplasma. The test has to be sent to NYC and takes a long time to culture.. 21 days, I think. No time for that. On suspicion, she suggested to put this bitch on Chloramphenicol (Chloromycetin) and that stopped the hemorrhaging and abortion, immediately. I had a nice litter from her, then!

I'm trying to remember the name of the clinic in Escondido, and can't offhand. They do semen freezing and other reproductive specialties. Try to look them up.

I suspect that a lot of bitches are carrying stuff like this and having problems carrying and conceiving. This bitch came from Germany. I had no other problems with her or the stud dog (who was mine) or any other bitches, after that. Quite possibly many dogs / bitches are subclinical carriers. No harm, no foul.. I'm not suggesting to start a campaign to test for mycoplasma, but if you are having troubles in your kennel, you might want to keep this in mind. If your dogs are healthy, well fed and not stressed, they could have a subclinical infection which resolves on it's own. After all, the immune system is what counts. That's what heals.. NOT the drugs. Antibiotics and the like only assist in overcoming infection by suppressing growth of the bacteria and other pathogenic organisms.

Just called my vet,he said  a pregnant female can sometimes discharge at this time.She is calm now and sleeping,I hope the panic is over,its the first time i have had this happen.The vet is only 5 mins away but he assures me that if anything was seriously wrong she would be very stressful.I just hope the next 10 days are ok,it should all be over and shall have a bunch of little squealers.
Thanks to all of you for panicking with me.

Sincere Regards Shirley

TAKE HER TO THE  VET NOW

By the way, my bitch was bleeding bright red, large amounts, clots. Dark red is not good.. old blood. Notice the smell, also and if there is a dead meat or rotting smell, this is really not good. However.. Where it may be a trauma induced event or from bacterial infection, it maybe possible to save the pups on the one horn of the uterus, even though the others are goners. At 58 days from conception, your bitch can have a C section and the pups can survive on their own.. not before. If you know the conception date, you are lucky. If you have to go by the breeding date, it may be a day or so later. I had this happen with a bitch, once.. (another bitch). She torsioned one side of her uterus and I figured out what had happened and put her on Combiotic, which is a penicillin / streptomycin "cocktail" injectible. It is unfortunately no longer available (USDA pulled the permit). Injectible penicillin would likely have done as well, but back then, everyone had a bottle of pen-strep in the fridge for an emergency. Well, anyway.. I kept the bitch on it for four days, until she had reached her 58th day, and then we went in and did the major surgery thing.. Sure enough, one side of the uterus dead, torsioned, with three pups in it. But, because she had been stabilized with massive doses of antibiotics, we saved the other two pups, which survived. It was their 58th day from conception.
Here's what I would do.. I would have the vet do a white cell count, right there in the office. That should give you an indication if there is infection involved. Then, you have to make a decision as to what to do.. Try to keep her on the antibiotics until the 58th day, and do a C section, or.. ? If your bitch likes to jump and chase a ball (as mine did.. on her own, BTW), then there is a chance of torsion. It's rare, but it can happen. Don't ask me how I figured it out. She wasn't bleeding or anything. She just wasn't herself.. and I made the decision after just looking at her for five minutes. Call it intuition, but I was right and made the right call, did the right thing. Sometimes, owners know their dogs better than the vets do.
Anyhow.. This is not normal. The vet should also do a culture and sensitivity test on the discharge.
I hope you can save the litter, because it may well be the last one for this bitch..

Shirley, I hate to tell you this, but veterinarians are WRONG, a lot of the time! This is NOT normal. I've had a good fifty litters in the past and I've never seen this, except the once, and there is no way it was normal.. too much blood!

Vets don't really get a lot on reproductive science in vet school.. especially regarding small animals.

I've outguessed my vets many times and it always pissed them off. They have a hard time believing that anyone could trump them after all that money spent on vet school.

The vet who I took the bitch with the torsioned uterus to told me that she was fine and I should just take her home to have her puppies. I INSISTED on the white cell count, right there in the office. When he saw that she had a very elevated white cell count, he stopped everything and took her into surgery. I got to watch (which was an honor) and sure enough.. There was the torsioned uterus with three dead pups in it. I lost them (which was unavoidable by any means) but I saved the other two. The bitch was spayed, then.

I'm just saying that I don't think this is "normal" and I would play it safe and do a culture / sensitivity test on the discharge, do a white cell count right there in the office. It cannot hurt!!!

NO - females do NOT bleed during their pregnancies, period!!!  NO, NOT, NEVER.  It is NOT normal!!!!  Normal discharge is clear or light yellowish but not pussy or smelly.  Discolored - blood, dark brown, brown, black - this is one or more aborted, dead, decomposing late-term puppies she is expelling.  Might just be one puppy - but geez stop asking on the internet and get her to a repro specialist.  Or, say goodbye to your litter.

molly