First season bleeding duration

[Cairo'sMum]

Here we are on day 22 of Cairo's first (and only) season. She'll be spayed three months after she stops bleeding......but she continues to bleed!

She has been very good at keeping herself clean, but I was expecting to have moved past this stage by now. Is it normal to bleed through the whole season? All seems fine (never had a bitch in season before, so I can't say normal!), but it does seem to be dragging on a bit. She is a miniature F1b labradoodle and about 8.5 months old.

She is a bit more clingy than usual, but the only issue we've had is her apparent need to constantly try to hump my leg! I've tried to explain to her that there are many, many reasons that she is rather confused She is easy enough to stop, but she is persistent. I'm the only one getting this loving attention; I guess I'm simply irresistible

Our last bitch was done at 6 months (we had an entire male in the house and didn't want to take the risk and - at the time - 6 months was the usual age for the procedure), but having done some reading we decided to wait until Cairo had had her first season. Now that it is here, and she will be so close to a year old in three months, should we wait the extra week or two before the spay - there's so much information about the best time to do it (or not) that I'm at a loss.

[Lancs Lass]

Hi there, like Cairo my dog is an F1b miniature labradoodle. She started her first season at about 7months. The bleeding was minimal and only seemed to go on for a week or two. We had just taken her on her first holiday, so not perfect timing . She was clingy and obviously we had to be really careful when out and about especially in a different environment!

We had taken vet's advice which was to get her spayed 3 months after start of her first season. The operation went well, groggy for 48 hours but then back to normal. However she then had a phantom pregnancy when she started producing milk and 'mothering' her toys(had to remove them from her). However didn't need any other treatment and made a good recovery.

Hope all goes well, never a perfect solution but would still follow vet's advice.

[Cairo'sMum]

Thanks for sharing your experience. They are mistresses of timing, aren't they! Glad to hear that the phantom pregnancy didn't cause too many problems.

I'll discuss the timing of her spay with our vet. They usually leave it to us to decide everything, but maybe there's a small window for spaying and they'll be more specific.

As a miniature she'll probably be fully grown before she gets to 12 months anyway...