Episode 8 - Morning Sickness in Pregnant Dams

1/16/2024

Today’s question is on dams who refuse to eat when pregnant:

“Ok friends, I’m having a REALLY difficult time getting my girl to eat…

I have mixing pumpkin purée, we currently have three different dog foods that I have been trying different combinations of. She was eating Badlands Ranch and Orijen really well, before that it was Royal Canin, but all of these she eventually has stopped eating. I have freeze dried medallions I break up and mix in, I have canned (Royal Canin) I try mixing in…anything to get her to eat. What else can I do to get her to eat?”

‌In this episode, I talk about:

What is and is not normal as far as loss of appetite and nausea in pregnant dams
Why dams get morning sickness and pickiness about food, and
Suggestions and ideas to get your reluctant dams to eat

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To read the transcript for this episode, click the link below.

EPISODE 8 - TRANSCRIPT

I'm Jane Messineo Lindquist, and this is a Puppy Culture potluck podcast. You bring the topics, we bring the conversation.

Today's question is about morning sickness in pregnant bitches. So I'm going to start off with reading the question. Here it is.

Okay, friends, I'm having a really difficult time getting my girl to eat. We believe she's around 45 day mark, but we go for an ultrasound on Thursday.

This is me talking. I just want to add that there was a follow up to this. And yes, indeed, this girl was pregnant. So now back to the question.

I have been mixing pumpkin puree. We currently have three different dog foods that I've been trying different combinations of. She was eating Badlands Ranch in Origin really well before that it was Royal Canin.

But all of these she eventually stopped eating. I have freeze dried medallions, I break up and mix in. I have canned food. I try mixing in anything to get her to eat. What else can I do to get her to eat?

Okay, so this is a deceptively simple question that you see all the time in the Puppy Culture Discussion Group and other boards, breeders who are just at their wit's end with dogs that have either become food selective inappetent meaning to say they just don't want to eat or actually throwing up.

So I could teach a whole course on this, but I'm just going to try and give you a broad overview, okay. Of just a way of approaching this. And to start out with, when you have a dam that isn't eating, it can be one of three categories. Okay? There's a legitimate evolutionary morning sickness in inappetence that can can appear at different times during pregnancy for different reasons. That's perfectly legitimate and normal.

Then there is a pathological version of that where just it's such severe morning sickness and inappetence that it can actually negatively affect the pregnancy. And then there's, you know, option C, which is it's not anything to do with the pregnancy. You know, any time you have a dog that is sick throwing up or doesn't want to eat, I mean, it can be something completely different.

So I'm going to I'm going to go through all of these three things for you and try and position it. And then I'm going to read you some of the suggestions and give you some of my suggestions for dealing with this. If it is legitimate morning sickness that is.

So let's start out with understanding the canine pregnancy cycle. Dogs are pregnant for nine weeks like humans, nine months dogs nine weeks, and it's divided into trimesters, the same as human beings. There's a first, second and third trimester. Now, dogs are somewhat different from a lot of other mammals in that for the first two trimesters, right up until the end of the second trimester, there is very little physical growth of, of the fetuses.

Okay. Those there's a lot going on as far as development goes. But the actual size of the embryos remains very small. And then there's really dramatic growth at the end of the pregnancy. And that last trimester is when you see most of the growth and also those even the last couple days, right down to the last few hours of pregnancy, it's almost like a stop motion animation, like how quickly different thing, you know, the lungs, the intestines, the bones. I mean, these things by the hour literally are changing and growing.

So the, the dog's evolutionary strategy basically is to run very light, physically light in the beginning of their pregnancy. And then at the end, at the end of pregnancy, they just have this exponential growth. So that's where all the growth comes in. Okay. Interestingly, not all animals that have a litter have this same strategy.

Cats, for instance, have a much more linear growth. Their kittens grow in a very linear manner throughout the pregnancy. They don't have this sort of flat line of of size and then just go straight up and, you know, have a perpendicular line growth point in the end. So this is a this is a particular canine thing right.

Now, what you also have to understand is in that first part of pregnancy, that first trimester going into the beginning of the second trimester, although, you know, you often don't even know if she's pregnant and she's not showing outward signs of pregnancy, that is a really, really critical time. In fact, the puppies are most vulnerable to birth defects during this time because the neural tube is forming.

And that that is the thing where if that doesn't form correctly, you're going to have limb deformities, you're going to have a midline closure defects, open skulls, open abdomens, cleft palate, all that kind of thing. Okay, So in that beginning, part of the pregnancy where the bitch doesn't look vulnerable to us, I mean, when she's so full of puppies that she can barely walk, I mean, we we have such our hearts go out to her.

We feel protective. But in the beginning, it just seems like she's normal. So we're not that worried about it. But ironically, that's really when the puppies are in the most danger of profound damage. And the profound damage that they're susceptible to is mostly going to be in the form of what we call teratogens Okay? Those are environmental toxins that are going to negatively affect the pregnancy.

And you know, the most one of the most, I should say, common form of teratogens would be through something that the bitch has ingested. Now I think you can kind of see where this is starting to go, right. You have a low energy need, in other words, like there's no increased caloric need at the beginning of the pregnancy.

In fact, maybe she can even sort of coast for a while and, you know, use some reserves. So not eating doesn't really have that big a risk to the dam. But eating the wrong thing can be tragic. Okay. Can be a tragic outcome. So the thought is that morning sickness, and this has been studied or I should say examined extensively in humans because three quarters of humans will experienced morning sickness.

The thought is because it happens early in the pregnancy and it tends to also involve very specific food aversions. And those foods tend to be things that could be toxic. And also you have to remember that pregnancy is an immunosuppressive state, right? The immune system has to be a little bit suppressed not to reject the fetus or fetuses.

And so all those things together just add up to not eating is a better evolutionary strategy. In the beginning.

Then what happens toward the end of the pregnancy in now we're going back to dogs, okay, toward the end of the pregnancy, those puppies are enormous. They've just had this huge, you know, growth spurt in those last few weeks.

And literally they're just taking up all the real estate inside of their mother. And often there's just not room in that stomach for her to eat. Then if you add on to that the fact that the body normally wants to clean itself out before whelping, now, again, I don't know, you know, the scientific reason why I can guess why because I would think that the less fecal matter you have around when you're expelling puppies, you know, the more sanitary it is, the less contamination is possible of the puppies.

But for whatever reason, you know, again, toward that end of the pregnancy, you can see damns not wanting to eat at the end of the pregnancy and also at the very beginning of, you know, when they're first nursing them with the puppies. But that that's beyond the scope. Okay. We're not going to touch that. But so so we're looking at like to really big areas like at the beginning and at the end of the pregnancy where typically we can see inappetence.

Okay, we did twice, we've done over the year surveys on the Puppy Culture discussion group and the classic presentation of morning sickness in, in dogs is around the time of implantation. Okay, just to review, if you don't know, the canine pregnancy is unusual, if not unique, it might even be unique in that the egg is fertilized and it just rolls around in there for a long time.

I mean, it has to go through a lot of development before it actually implants into the uterus. And that typically doesn't happen. Like the process begins somewhere between 16 and 18 days after ovulation. And so I'm counting from ovulation. If you're counting from luteinizing hormone, LH surge, you know, it's going to add two days to it. But whenever I'm talking about this, I'm talking about ovulation.

So somewhere in that 16 to 18 day, like going up to 22 days classically is when the breeders report that they will see some form of inappetence or morning sickness in their dams. And normally it's not going to last more than anywhere from throwing up once to maybe 2 to 4 days. That’s what I would say is a classic presentation.

Now there's a, there are truly dams that just have inappetence the entire, they just don't want to eat anything the entire pregnancy. And you know, that's a problem. But I guess what I'm what I'm trying to say is that if you are around that 16 to 18 day mark and your dam throws up once and then is fine, you know, you really don't have anything to worry about. If she becomes picky about what she eats, but she will eat.

That is a good evolutionary strategy for her because she's she's telling you that what her body is telling her is safe to eat up. Most of the breeders that write in that are extremely upset about it feel for some reason that it's pathological that that their dams all of a sudden just don't want to eat dog food or their raw food or whatever it is that they eat normally or that they have, one day they want one thing and the next day they want something else.

But this is totally normal and for a lot of reasons. Number one, again, variety. Like if you're switching through things quickly, you're less likely to land on something that could be a teratogen. And also there's the gut biome thing that we're always talking about where these dams are, they know that they need a variety of stuff to to build up their gut biomes, to build, build up their puppy's gut biomes.

They also need they, they need a variety of things depending on what day of the pregnancy it is. I mean, the mother knows what she needs. So my advice to you with morning sickness, if it is morning sickness and we're going to talk about that, is that it? Listen, feed her what she wants to eat, whatever it takes.

Feed her what she wants to eat. Mother really does know best in this case. She'll go back to eating whatever food you're feeding her after her pregnancy. But for now, she's very wise in being picky. And if you have to hand feed her whatever you have to do, that's fine. Now, here's where it gets tricky. Okay? So you really have to know your breed and you have to know your dog any time there's vomiting more than one time and then the dog goes right back to being normal or any kind of sustained inhabitants.

It is a red flag and you need veterinary attention. The problem is that a lot of things that can present very similar to morning sickness can be serious problems. Like whenever I put these surveys out, you know, we get a number of people writing in, “Yeah, I thought my, my dam had morning sickness and it was pyometra”, okay.

It was a uterine infection. Pyometritus can cause inappetence and listlessness and throwing up. So, you know, any time you have more than just, you know, a slight punkiness, maybe for a day. I mean, I got my dam going in for blood work. It really it could be life and death, especially if you haven't confirmed pregnancy yet. Now, the other thing is, especially if you're moving forward in the pregnancy, gestational diabetes is is a big problem that, again, can cause, particularly if there's increased thirst.

That's another red flag right there. But gestational diabetes can present like morning sickness or inappetence. So, you know, what I'm trying to say is you always have to rule out the medical. And just my rule of thumb, if they throw up more than once, if it's more than just a couple hours of not wanting to eat, I am going to get some blood work done on my dog just to make sure everything's okay.

As I said, a number of people write in whenever I put the survey out. A number of people write in that it turned out to be a pyometra and a number of people will write in and say that it turned out to be gestational diabetes. And another, another thing is blockage, you know, an intestinal obstruction. So all of these things can present like morning sickness.

So just because you've bred your dog or even confirm the pregnancy, you can never assume that that just throwing up and not eating is okay. But now let's say that you've ruled all that out. Okay? So we know that, you know, we're around that time when I'm and I'm going to take this first, the early part morning sickness like your classic not wanting to eat around the time of implantation of the embryos.

Well, we've already established there's there's a solid evolutionary reason for this. It's protective of, of the puppies and that there's nothing wrong with it. But that can become pathological. Okay. That if that continues throughout the pregnancy, there really can be malnutrition of the of the puppies. So at some point, you know, your dam is going to have to eat.

We're going to have to start encouraging her if if it's going on more than a couple of days. Now, we have to look at some other strategies. And I'm going to read you some of the suggestions that have come into the group over the years.

So first, I'm going to make some global suggestions for getting your dam to eat.

And number one, warming the food. A lot of breeders have said just simply making the food a little bit warmer has been helpful. Hand-feeding. A lot of breeders say hand-feeding has been helpful. Something that I have found helpful and a number of people have mentioned is that giving a little bit of something sugary like Karo, it can kind of jumpstart the dam very much the way that neonatal puppies can get hypoglycemic and then kind of get punky and tired and then just be too tired to eat and actually lose their appetite, giving them a little hit of sugar sometimes can give them that boost and make them want to eat again, especially if they've been throwing up.

They can start having just a classic conditioned aversion to wanting to eat so that sugar goes down easy. It normally is very easy on the stomach and it can give them that kick start. Someone had mentioned candied ginger, which is great because that both settles the stomach and also has a little bit of sugar in it.

So these are just kind of global practices that can help. You are, no matter what you feed, probably going to have to rotate. And you know, we've discussed that this is evolutionary, a good strategy and physically a good strategy for your dam to be rotating through food. So if she doesn't, you know, she's it's going to be rotisserie chicken is the king one day in the next days, poison.

And that's the way it is. And that's all good. You know, a lot of breeders really say it just drives them to distraction, that they have to keep giving a different food. But again, I just want to reassure you not only should this not be driving you to distraction, you should be thrilled because it means your dam is really a good mother and taking care of her puppies well.

Okay, so the last thing that some people mention is giving an acid reducer and that that can really help. And I again, I have not availed myself of that. I do encourage you to check out the safety of that and make sure that you're using a product that is safe for a pregnant dam. But people have mentioned that they use that and it helps in some cases.

Are another thing with the sugary stuff. Vanilla ice cream. A number of people mentioned giving vanilla ice cream again can give them that boost. It's very palatable. It goes down easy. It's got that sugar in it. It can sort of kickstart them into being hungry again. Again, just like neonatal puppies. They can get in a negative loop of not eating, getting tired, then not having the energy to have an appetite.

And those things, the Karo, the vanilla ice cream, the candied ginger, those can be great first foods that can be a jumping off point to starting some of these other ones that I'm going to list.

So canned puppy food is one that comes up all the time. I think Royal Canin has something that a lot of people mention works very well.

And I'm just going to say here, I'm reading these just in random order. Okay? Some of them are things that dog food feeders feed. Some are things that raw feeders or natural feeders feed. I'm not I'm not making that distinction. I'm just giving you a laundry list and you can pick through yourself, baby food, baby food, meat. A lot of that that a lot of people mentioned that a gastrointestinal food from Royal Canin.

A couple people mentioned that freeze dried food toppers, a number that's like the number one thing that people mention is that adding a freeze dried food topper can be very that can be very enticing. Ground turkey, ground hamburger, eggs are either raw or cooked on all three of those shredded cheese. A number of people mentioned freeze dried beef, liver, and also they sell these liver sprinkles, which are supposed to be an appetite stimulant.

The woman that mentioned, one of the women that mentioned freeze dried beef liver. So she gets it, I think, at Costco and then she grates it through a box grater on to the food. The only caveat I would give you with that is that liver is very high in vitamin A and vitamin D is a teratogen so that, you know, that could cause birth defects if you give them too much in the beginning, you know.

So especially for that first trimester, right, where they're getting that true morning sickness there, you know, tread very lightly with the beef liver. In fact, if you if you're one that uses liver freeze dried liver treats, I would not do that in the first trimester. But, you know, a dusting I'm sure is not, is fine, if it if it can if it can stimulate the appetite.

Rotisserie chicken is a perennial favorite. A lot of damns just love rotisserie chicken. I will say a lot of dams also have sensitivity to chicken. Chicken is one of those foods. So, you know, trial and error, what can I say? Pasta. A number of people mentioned a product called Honest Kitchen. I don't know what it is. Satin balls.

Okay. Satin balls is a big one. You can just look for it on the Internet. There'll be a recipe. It's basically, I think, eggs, corn flakes, wheat germ, salad oil and hamburger. There might be some other things in it, but it's it's a go to for for putting weight on dogs or dogs that really don't want to eat.

One woman said she, her dam would eat the kibble if she put peanut butter on it. Again, make sure your peanut butter doesn't have xylitol. I also I'm not high on feeding a lot of legumes to pregnant bitches, but, you know, I mean, a little bit is not going to kill her. And if it gets her eating, that can be helpful.

Gravy from roast chicken, Greek yogurt, cat food, green tripe, pot roast, chicken stew, roast pork, mashed potatoes with broth and butter, canned mackerel, sardines, cottage cheese. And then one woman mentioned hamburger, kale, sweet potato, rice, oats and eggs, sort of made into a soupy gruel. So those are just, you know, some of the hyper savory foods that people have mentioned that seem to work on their dams in that early part of the pregnancy.

And again, you're going to find virtually one thing one day and not another day. And that is normal and fine. So, you know, moving on there, sort of the really lion's share is going to be right around that implantation. And the lion's share is not going to be more than two or 2 to 4 days. If you've got more than that, Yeah, you really want to start getting in there and micromanaging this and really trying to get her to eat and doing what, cooking whatever it takes to get her to eat.

Then at the very end of the pregnancy you're going to see her going off her food and a couple of things like basically any of these foods, but making it more soupy, watery, just so it just is a little bit less solid generally. That's what people have found will help small, tiny meals frequent.

There just isn't room in there for her to get a lot down. And then, you know, as you're coming right around to the time of well-being, it's natural for her to turn down food. But again, you can never assume if you've got a bitch that's throwing up, not eating, and particularly if she's drinking a lot of water, you can never assume it's not gestational diabetes.

So, you know, unless you actually are in the process where, you know that your that your dam is whelping or just really about to whelp, I would be having my dam in for blood work if I saw any kind of severe inappetence or nausea at any time in the pregnancy. So I just want to say about this what I just talked about, this hypothesis, this evolutionary hypothesis for morning sickness.

Again, there's a lot of studies in humans, a lot of papers in humans talking about this. But what I find actually humorous is that every single paper I looked at said that humans are the only animals known to get morning sickness, which is just so not true. I mean, I think the takeaway from it is that whenever we're talking about things with dogs, I mean, we really are left to our own devices as far as trying to extrapolate what's best and what's true and what's not true because we are so overlooked As far as dogs.

I mean, there's very little really studies specifically of dogs, dog gestation, you know, prenatal, anything to do with dogs. So for what it's worth, this this is my observation as far as morning sickness and inappetence in dogs. I also want to just circle back for a minute to the beginning when I talked about the midline closure defects and how ingested teratogens would be probably the most likely reason for midline closure or birth defects.

And this is a big topic. Okay. And I do treat it a little more extensively in my article on folic acid supplementation, which you can find at madcapuniversity.com. And I do encourage you to read that article because it's a pretty good recitation of the considerations of the kinds of things that can cause birth defects in the beginning of pregnancy.

It's beyond the scope of this, but definitely check that out. It's an it's important reading. What I will say, however, that I did not mention there or in the beginning of this podcast, is that another thing that you often will see with your dams around that time of morning sickness is reduced activity? Okay. So it's like a tamping down and you'll see that they're just very sort of sedate again, tricky, right?

Because they should be clinically normal if they are truly, you know, pathologically listless and it's not clinically normal. That is a red flag that there's something wrong with your dam. But they can have just that sort of overall almost just like someone put a blanket on them and they're just a little dampened down, a little bit more clingy, a little bit less active.

And again, from an evolutionary point of view, it makes sense because if the number one way that you're going to encounter a teratogen is eating it, the number two way would be stepping in it or brushing against it or being exposed to it. So the less activity that the dam has around that time when her whelps are the most vulnerable, the less she eats, the less she does, the safer it's going to be.

Again, the normal pattern is going to be that you're going to see that inappetence and or morning sickness, which it can be inappetence by itself. It can be throwing up without inappetence. It can be any combination of the two, and it can last anywhere from one hour to four days. And I would say any of those are clinically normal presentations.

And then typically at that end, part of the pregnancy, you're not the end end, but as you're going from the second to the third trimester, you will see a big uptake in appetite. But ironically, some bitches can have a big downturn in uptight appetite. So there can be a change in appetite. Normally it will be an uptick as the puppies, as you know, they're growing and she needs to actually have more food, but sometimes not.

So again, there's no universal and anytime you have that clinically not normal throwing up, especially if it's repeated, throwing up violent, throwing up extended, throwing up, not wanting to eat, refusing food for an extended period of time, you know, that's really that's a veterinary emergency.

Well, that's just a tidbit overview of morning sickness and dams. I hope it helped you if you enjoyed this podcast, you'll love our breeder course at madcapuniversity.com.

Thanks for listening. Bye bye.