How to Prevent Your Dog from Having Puppies

You might have one dog or two dogs, and maybe you have a male and a female dog, but you do not want a litter of puppies running around your house. A dog's instinct is always going to be to mate and procreate. But if you do not want to have puppies in your home, you may want to know how you can prevent your female dog in heat from becoming pregnant.

Unless you are a breeder, your dog having puppies could be expensive and potentially dangerous for your dog if she runs into health problems. Once she has her pups, you will then be responsible for their care until you can find good homes for them.

If puppies are not on your agenda, it is easier to prevent your dog from having puppies than it is to handle the responsibility of having an unwanted litter.

Sterilization

Dogs, both male and female, are ready to mate and create their own puppies before they are even a year old. Your veterinarian may recommend spaying and neutering your dogs, however with some large breeds, you may want your female dog to go into one or two heat cycles before you have her spayed. If you have a male dog and you have no intent to breed him, your veterinarian can tell you the ideal time to have him neutered. For many breeds, your dog can be as early as five months of age, and for some tiny breeds, it may even be earlier. Spaying and neutering your dogs is the best way to keep them from making puppies. There are health benefits for your dogs outside of not having puppies for spaying and neutering your dogs as well. Until they are spayed and neutered, you will want to keep a close eye on them to ensure they are not mating. Your female dog will be able to have puppies before you may realize she is in season.

Segregation

However, there may be times when your dog needs to go through heat cycles and cannot be spayed right away. In these cases, be sure to keep your in-season female dog inside your home and away from intact male dogs. If you have a male dog who lives in your house with your female dog, you may want to separate them all together into separate homes while your female dog goes through her season of heat. Sometimes, even keeping dogs in separate crates or separate rooms is often not enough to keep an intact male dog away from your female dog. However, keeping them separated will typically keep them from mating, which means you should not have puppies in the near future. This is not a time to take your female dog to a local dog park, for a walk around the neighborhood, or even into a pet store. Intact male dogs will do and go through just about anything to reach your female dog in heat. So, unless you’re hoping for puppies, keep her away from male dogs. If female dogs and male dogs are separated, they will not have a chance to make puppies.

Deterrence

The trick to not having puppies, of course, is to keep your dogs from mating. If you are unable to spay or neuter your dogs, which is probably the best option available for preventing unwanted pregnancies in animals, you can purchase products to keep your female dog's scent while in heat away from the male dogs, who are incredibly attracted to those pheromones. You can talk to your veterinarian or your local pet food store about products such as chlorophyll or sprays you can spritz onto your female dog to mask the attractive scent of heat that male dogs will be searching for. Some owners, if they have an intact female and an intact male dog within their house, will put britches, pants, or even diapers on one or both dogs to prevent them from connecting. This is not a surefire way of preventing puppies and pregnancy. However, if your dogs are supervised it will certainly give you a few minutes to get them separated before your aggressive testosterone-driven male dog chews off the britches to get to the highly attractive female dog in your house.

Clearly, if you do not want puppies, preventing pregnancy is the only way to stop your dogs from creating puppies. Pregnancy prevention for your dogs is the only way to go if you don't want to deal with the cost of caring for a pregnant dog or the cost of caring for a litter of puppies. Not to mention the time and effort it will take to find good homes for these cute little critters once they are born. Spaying and neutering your dogs while they are still puppies or at the appropriate time for their size of breed could help prevent future diseases for them, such as cancer. Dogs who are spayed and neutered typically live longer than dogs who were left intact. And male dogs who are neutered tend to be less aggressive and don't have the need for free roaming as dogs who were left intact.

Puppies are possibly one of the cutest things on earth. However, if you do not want them in your home and you do not want your dogs mating, it is a good idea to take preventive measures to keep those cute little critters from being born within your family. There are certainly health benefits to spaying and neutering your dogs before they have a litter of puppies. But avoiding puppies in your life has some advantages as well. Being a responsible dog owner is difficult enough. Adding an unwanted pregnancy only adds more cost to dog ownership and potentially, more stress in your life.

The best way to prevent your dog from having puppies is to get them spayed or neutered. Spay/neuter surgery can be expensive. The good news is, wellness plans can put 100% of the bill right back in your pocket within 24 hours. Check out our pet wellness plans to find the right match for your pet!