My Hunting Dog Training Blog

Yesterday I thought it was a little odd that Abby barely touched her food. This morning I discovered the reason why she wasn't feeling like herself. She was spotting and her kennel mate "Jake" was paying unusually close attention to her. Turns out that she was going into heat for the first time. She is 10 months old and I was hoping she would give me a few more months to get Jakes kennel finished. This morning I moved Abby into my workshop until she gets through this first cycle.

After a bit of reading and research it looks like I will be keeping Abby in lock-down for a few weeks. I hope to breed Abby when she is 2-3 years old after I have time to get the proper health checks and screenings. In my reading I learned a lot about the heat cycle of dogs and when is the right time for breeding. Ten months old is definitely too young to have a litter of puppies. Poor Jake is a bit lonely out in the kennel all by himself. For not getting along very well, the two of them sure are showing some separation anxiety.