happybooker1

Do you find that all your bitches come in heat around the same time? I know if women work together in an office they will all have their periods around the same time. I have always wondered if it's the same for dogs or not.

Just an idle question.

flightsoffancy

My experience is that most of my intact females come into season (heat) with in a week of each other. This goes for my goats and my dogs.

fjm

I have asked breeders about this, and it seems to be the common experience - Poppy is now coinciding with Sophy, which is useful as she has near secret seasons. It makes a lot of sense in evolutionary terms for bitches to coincide - most dogs have some degree of phantom pregnancy, and many produce milk even if not pregnant. If anything happened to the mother wolf, the cubs older sisters from the previous year(s) would be able to nurse them. I know breeders sometimes do the same thing, getting a pseudo pregnant dog to nurse pups when the mother cannot.

ETA - FoF - do your dogs synchronise with your goats, too? That really would be fascinating.

__________________

To sit with a dog on a hillside on a glorious afternoon is to be back in Eden,
where doing nothing was not boring- it was peace.

~ Milan Kundera

SarainPA

My bitches always bring each other in about the same time. Some people have been known to have their bitch be around another bitch in season to try to make them come in a little sooner so they can be done if they have a big show coming up. On the other hand, they will also place a bitch somewhere else for a couple of weeks if they don't want her coming in.

zyrcona

Cool theory. A breeder has told me bitches do tend to synchronise themselves. Also when two bitches in the same house have puppies, they don't seem to care which puppies they suckle and the pups will mix and match.

3dogs

I can only explain my bitches & I don't breed. I had 3 intact females. 1 just got spayed today so she is behind me drowsy & not eating or drinking but the spay/neuter clinic did an awesome job & with internal dissolvable sutures is fantastic, plus pain meds for my dogs weight was $120.00. Way to go low cost spay/neuter.

Back to the OP. Lil (my now spayed female) 1st heat cycle was at 11 months of age, her 2nd heat didn't start for a full 15 months After that & I think only because we adopted a recently Neutered Male Spoo. Oh! young love played out. Then 7 months later she went into heat again & now 5 months from there she is spayed & luckily didn't go into heat.

Her Sister Lulu we didn't AOPT until she was 15 months of age & she had already had 1 litter of puppies in October when she was about 10 months old. Then she was regular April, October, April & then went into a false heat when her sister Lil went into heat BUT she never bled & was only of interest to our neutered male for about 2 days. Jealously maybe? but she missed her heat in October of this year so I hope she get's back on track again. much easier to keep track of than Lil's all over the place heat cycles. Lulu will get spayed in 2012.

Louisa just had her 1st heat cycle at 11 months ( november) so we will see what happens with her.

Trillium

Betty Jo and Jenny always come into heat about a week apart. Last time when we were hoping to encourage them to come into heat a little sooner I took them over to visit Arreau as one of her girls was in heat. They played for the day and few days later Betty Jo came into heat. (She always comes into heat first)

In fact Betty Jo came into heat on Mon so I'm expecting that Jenny will be in heat soon.

__________________