Does your dog practice it's parental instincts on it's toys?

The dog is following natural instincts, she does not 'want' to have babies to take care of. An animal is not capable of making that decision. A dog will mate and produce offspring whether they have homes or not, whether there is food available or not, whether they are out in the street or not. Spaying her will not 'take something away from her'. When you took her into your home, you took on the responsibility for caring for her and for making the decisions best for her welfare. Allowing her to have pups just for the sake of having pups is not a good decision. I say spay the girl.

Our mongrel went through a phase like this for a while. She had a few phantom pregnancies and took to caring for everything that had her scent on it as if it were a puppy. She proved real trouble with our Shi-Tzu. They fought like something terrible as the Shi-Tzu was always very protective of 'her' toys (she'll sit on them to stop any other dogs getting them) and the mongrel kept stealing them and putting them in her basket. It also caused trouble with the poor dogs my mom fosters (often damaged little things from abusive homes and puppy farms). They were often skittish anyway :( But she grew out of it. She was around the same age as your pitbull (and probably about the same size). Hopefully she'll get over it too. Give it a few months and see if the behaviour fades at all. I understand your dilemma, especially as getting her 'done' could be dangerous. Good luck, hopefully she'll get over it soon.

In all honesty, I feel as though you should allow her to have at least one litter. That is, if she is well mannered and she has a good temperament.

My dog is only a year old, so I'm wondering if she would go through the same thing, too. For the past few months she has been ignoring her toys until recently, she started to take it with her again, but not like what your dog does.

It is not a "mother" instinct. It is a resource guarding instinct. A dog or cat will sometimes carry its "catch" around with them. They are protecting their resources. It is the same situation as when a dog growls at a person coming near them when they have a bone or a bowl of food. If she wasn't doing it with a toy but with a bone, you would probably see it as a negative behavior rather than "mothering". She is saying "MINE!", not "i have really been thinking about the idea of motherhood. It might be a good idea to keep a close eye on this and be firm on her not expanding her idea on what "MINE" happens to be. (boy dogs do exactly what she is doing too.) I urge you to consider getting her spayed for the following reasons: 1) It will greatly decrease her risk of ovarian cancer, uterine cancer, and pyometria. It may not seem to be a threat now, but as she gets older, it definitely is a risk. 2) It will reduce the risk of attracting other, unwanted dogs to your yard when she is in heat. And keeping her inside doesn't solve it, they will still come. 3) If you are wanting to breed her just so she may or may not carry out her maternal instincts - what will you do with the pups? How can you insure without a doubt that you will be able to thoroughly check out the families that get them. Go beyond "they seem like nice people" and really find them good homes. Remember, there are lots of "nice people" that make terrible dog owners. 4) Do you really know what her parents, and grandparents were like? Do you know without a doubt their strengths and weaknesses, as you would not want to deliberately pass down tendencies for illnesses, weakness of the hips, short lifespans or non optimum temperments. 5) Will you spay the puppies before they go home (they can be spayed as early as 8 weeks) to ward off anyone looking for a breeding prospect? Or up to no good? 6) Now - let's be honest here...Are you aware that only 1 in 12 dogs ever finds a permanent home, and the statistic is 1 in 52 or 56 for a pitbull. Can you breed your dog knowing that if something should happen and one of her puppies should get loose - even if its several years after they are taken by another family, that many shelters will put down a pitbull immediately upon admission no matter if they are the sweetest dog ever? And for the shelters that do return them to their owner, or put them up for adoption, that getting adopted from a shelter is slim because there are just so many at the pounds? Please strongly consider spaying her. I know I may come across as pretty opinionated, but its a weekly heartbreak working with shelter pups who don't get out.

Doesn't actually mean shes practicing parental instincts. I think most of which you posted above is typical doggy traits. My dog is a male four year old Sheltie and he does it, and so does our female golden. If you don't think it neccessary to breed then don't!

That sounds real cute. I haven't seen a pet enjoy his toy so much. Maybe he's not yet ready for breeding if he's that young and still enjoys playing..but who knows..Anyways, you do what you think would be best. My sister breeds her dogs when they are a bit older than 3.

My dog used to do this to, and the vet told me that she was having a phantom pregnancy, he said that letting her breed would help to solve this problem, but I could not really let her breed as I was not in a position to have a dog that had puppies and all the things that go with it. He said that spaying her would also stop the phantom pregnancies, but ideally its a good idea to let the dog have a litter before speying because they become gentle in nature then when they have been a mum first. But I opted to have her speyed anyway and she never had the phantom pregnancies again and she was even more of a softie afterwards!

I don't know about a dog, but I had a cat that used to take the other cat's babies and try to be their mom. She even nursed them. And she never had a litter of her own because we had her spayed early. She raised a lot of babies in her long life. She did lose interest when she got old, but it was amazing to watch her take all those kids under her wing.