She definitely looks black sable.

I was told by a breeder, that when they want to add deep color to the line, they use a black sable. It is the basis for all GSDs.

It's more about the skin pigment in a dark sable but I've heard the same.
Sable is the dominant color gene in the GSD but I've never seen one at a show. Not cookie cutter enough.

Jamie, have you had her tested for EPI? My older GSD (9+)has it and had lost 16 lbs before it was diagnosed. He's back to his normal 79-80 lb and same old healthy dog.
85% of all EPI dogs diagnosed are GSDs.

Is that a concern even if she's gaining though? I'm not against more testing if she needs it however considering I planned on pulling a bouncy 2 year old for training I do need to budget a lot more carefully for this foster.

She's got the sniffles (which as of this morning are clearing up). However even through her cold she still ate well. She's still putting on weight, she's still active (a bit less so with the sniffles nothing concerning). She's starting the beginning of what could be muscling up. There are things i need to watch with her and pregnancy is becoming slightly more of a concern (she's at the end of her heat it looks like, which means she was most likely fertile while she could have been running stray in an area where I don't think I could find a neutered dog if I tried...this is a problem as she's no where NEAR ready for a spay and some of the drugs to abort puppies make my vet a bit nervous considering the immunosuppression side effects)

Do you think she is pregnant?

 Quote: Jamie Craig

Is that a concern even if she's gaining though? I'm not against more testing if she needs it however considering I planned on pulling a bouncy 2 year old for training I do need to budget a lot more carefully for this foster.

She's got the sniffles (which as of this morning are clearing up). However even through her cold she still ate well. She's still putting on weight, she's still active (a bit less so with the sniffles nothing concerning). She's starting the beginning of what could be muscling up. There are things i need to watch with her and pregnancy is becoming slightly more of a concern (she's at the end of her heat it looks like, which means she was most likely fertile while she could have been running stray in an area where I don't think I could find a neutered dog if I tried...this is a problem as she's no where NEAR ready for a spay and some of the drugs to abort puppies make my vet a bit nervous considering the immunosuppression side effects)

About EPI: What are the poops like now? Is she both gaining, even if slowly, and having log poops?



About possible pregnancy: What are the symptoms of her having been in estrus when running loose? That is, how strong is your suspicion that she is at the end of a heat?

What does the vet say about the relaxin test, which I believe can detect pregnancy as little as 24 days or so after breeding?

She's both gaining with 100% healthy poop. Apart from her sniffles, which is improving and she does have a follow up vet check for tommorrow afternoon, she is certaintly getting healthier with just a good diet, grooming, slow careful exercise, and the antibiotics she was on for the minor infection which is now gone


When she was picked up originally she was spotting but it was watery and diluted. I have male dogs...I typically spay all female dogs, I don't have much real world experience with breeding age females that are still intact except for my previous foster who also went into heat (a few days after bringing her home -_-) and back in school but that was specific procedures not observation over a few weeks of the process. I googled and saw blood=not yet fertile.

I thought that the blood then meant we were most likely safe from the possibility of her getting knocked up while on the street. Buuuut upon examination the vet didn't agree and told me that I should watch her this week, and use Gamble's interest in seeing if she's on the tail end of her heat. If he starts to lose interest she may be coming out of her heat and we'll need to be VERY aware at the possibility of pregnancy as she could have easily been fertile in the time before I got her. That of course doesn't mean she's pregnant as for all we know she could have been safe in a yard before then but at some point she was running free and possibly receptive in an area with a LOT of strays.

Gamble's still a bit obnoxious (but less so) however at this point it's less "constant love song" and more "I object to this crate and rotate schedule" plus Ryuk, who is neutered but WAY more of a ladies dog than Gamble has ever been is completely back to normal.

We were waiting for the end of this week to be truly concerned about pregnancy so there hasn't been much talk of pregnancy testing, only some "worst case scenarios" which was really the vet testing the waters to see if I wanted to "save" the puppies so she could put together some options (we're in a radical pro-life area that sometimes extends to pets so she wanted to make sure we were on the same page in case she had to present options)....I'm 100% pushing for making sure those balls of cells never become puppies as long as it's not going to kill Willow in the process. If she's pregnant the father is going to be one of the hundreds of stray intact blue hippo "bully type" pitbulls in Canton, it's puppy season in an area flooded with badly bred dogs, she's not in good health, and the idea of having to bottle feed a litter of orphan conformational trainwreck pit mixes I'll never be able to place is um...not particularly appealing?

The medications to abort puppies have, or used to have, lots of complications with pyometra.

Pregnancy has complications too in an old bitch.

Some owners elect to allow the pregnancy and euthanize most of the pups at birth, leaving 2-3.

Surgery (spay) in a week or so after all heat signs are gone can be done. It might be the safest/cheapest option depending on the dog's condition.

She may also develop a pyo (and not BE pregnant) because she is old and run down and that tends to happen to old run down bitches.

Lots of decisions for Jamie!

A friend of mine lost a very nice German Short hair to Pyo because of that medication. I would certainly allow the birth to happen IF that were the situation.
I almost lost a Kerry bitch because of Pyo and she wasn't pregnant. It was after an abnormal heat cycle.

My childhood dog was pregnant and had a spay abort done (we didn't know, but they found them once they cut her open). I've also had contact with a few dogs that had spay aborts done knowingly. That's a small sampling compared to the millions of dogs out there, but there were no complications. One of the dogs was an older female, but I don't recall her age exactly. They simply did a lot of blood work to make sure she wouldn't die from the GE.