RE: Question for breeders of working/hunting dogs.
I will run a pregnant bitch until I notice it starting to affect her. I watch her closely each and every time out and when I feel she is having to work harder than what she normally does, then that is it. Then it is just out for walks until she delivers her pups.
Some have suggested that working a pregnant female ( guess we aren't allowed to call a female dog what they are *****...) will help the pups to develop to be better hunting dogs. I guess it can be argued on both sides of he coin. Heck, I don't know. I do know one thing for sure that keeping yourfemale in shape during a pregnancy will help her during whelping.
All that being said, there is a risk each and every time you take your dog out hunting. There is always a possibility of her getting hurt, but I have seen a very pregnant beagle win a field trial before too. That win gave her the FC title to go along with her name.
As far as when to start afterwords, let her dry up a little after weaning. Nothing worse than having saggy teats dragging in the briars getting torn to shreds. Each dog is different here. People use different remedies to get their dogs to dry up faster, but I am a fan of letting mother nature take her course and giving thefemale time to regain her body weight and strength after feeding a litter of pups. I start with walks and work her up from there. I just don't take them out and run them for 8 hours the first time out after pups.
Emery