The First Glimpse of Jolly's Puppies: Why we do an Ultrasound

We had an exciting trip to the vet in December 2015.  We took Jolly for an ultrasound to confirm her pregnancy, and we are delighted to share with you that she is expecting puppies in the end of January 2016!  Below are a two difficult-to-see pictures of the ultrasound.  The little frog-like images are the puppies.

We have a few reasons why we chose to do an ultrasound for our expectant females.
 
1) Confirm pregnancy – Ultrasounds can be done around 21-28 days gestation, which makes them one of the earliest detection tools for canine pregnancy.

2) Confirm a viable pregnancy – In addition to confirming that there are puppies in there, an ultrasound helps determine if the puppies are alive and healthy.

3) Convenience of those on our waiting list – Doing an ultrasound allows those on our ever-growing waiting list know if there is a possibility of puppies.

4) Establish approximate litter size – Although x-rays done later in the pregnancy (typically after day 49) are known for being more accurate for puppy counting than ultrasounds, we’ve found that ultrasounds give us a nice approximation of puppies with the benefit of being done earlier than an x-ray.   The other downside of an x-ray is determining when to do it with several breeding dates.  If done too early, the bones of the puppies won’t be calcified enough to see.  On the other hand, if you wait too long, the puppies may arrive!  For example, with Jolly’s 2015 puppies, we took her for an x-ray at day 52 from her first breeding, and day 44 from her last breeding.  The x-ray showed 4 puppies, and she had 8.  So, we took her too early, but based on her breeding dates, it was a good time to take her.
 
We are hoping there are much cuter puppy pictures to follow in a few weeks!  Happy New Year!