One father, two father, or more

Can a litter of pups have different fathers? Find out in this weeks vet question column.

There can be multiple fathers in a litter of pups. Picture: Jametlene Reskp

Question - I have heard there can be different fathers in a litter of pups. Is this true and how is it possible?

Answer - This is true.

When a female dog is on heat, she is receptive to being mated for about seven days.

During this period of time, she will ovulate repeatedly.

She may be mated by several different males during the heat period.

Any of these males may father offspring.

Dog reproduction involves the production of a litter of puppies, the conception of these pups may occur over a period of time.

Breeders sometimes need to contend with this when they are looking at breeding a particular female.

As an example, let's consider Labradors, a yellow female may be bred to a yellow male and all the puppies should be yellow.

If a puppy turns out to be black, another male has been involved.

This is easy to see, but what if the second male was yellow too?

DNA testing of the puppies can be performed using swabs of the inside of the puppies' mouths.

These DNA swabs will establish the puppies' parentage without a doubt.