There are many times that new dog owners are very surprised by the changes that take place in their pet when the heat cycle arrives. The dog breeding cycle occurs about twice a year ?in six month intervals and lasts for about three weeks each time. The length of the cycle does vary with different dog breeds, so it is important that you do research the breed to you have to find out the specifics of its breeding cycle. Even though the length of the cycle is about 21 days, there are only two or three days within this time frame when female dogs can conceive.

There are symptoms of this oncoming heat cycle that you should be aware of. A few days before the cycle is about to start, you will notice the dog paying a lot of attention to her vulva and licking it frequently. The area around the vagina will also appear hard and swollen. Female dogs are just like human females in that they do have bleeding from the vagina during their breeding cycle, although it only comes twice a year instead of once a month. Your bitch will start to bleed and at first this may be heavy dark red blood. Those owners who are not expecting this may think that there is something wrong with their pet and rush off to the vet.

One way to handle this and not have spots of blood all over the house is to put a pair of boy’s underwear on the dog. If you want to keep the underwear for the next occasions or to wash the underwear every day, use a small pad inside the underwear that just sticks on. Then all you have to do is take off the pad and throw it in the garbage. The flow is usually heaviest during the first few days, but will turn lighter in colour and gradually decrease within a week or two.

As the dog gets close to her mating time, the area around the vagina will soften considerably. This is how you will know that your dog is starting to produce eggs if you are interested in breeding the dog. In order to attract the males of the species, she will urinate frequently in different places to spread her scent around. If you observe her actions you can also detect signs of the impending mating period because she will twitch her tail to the side.

If you are not sure exactly how to pinpoint the mating period and you do want to breed more puppies, you can contact your vet to help you get an exact date. There is also a premate test that you can do yourself to pinpoint the day of ovulation. It does require drawing a small amount of blood from the dog so if this is something you don’t feel confident about doing, the vet can draw the blood to measure the level of progesterone in the blood. This level rises significantly as she gets closer to ovulating.

For more information on dog breeding cycle,how to care for sick dogs and dog neutering visit http://www.EDogAdvice.com