After Onyx's first heat, she had a vaginal discharge. We took her into the vet. and they said it was a form of Pyometra. Pyometra can be very fatal, and usually only occurs in elder un-spayed females. The vet. will take an x-ray of your female. The uterus is not supposed to ever be visible in an x-ray, but when they have Pyometra the uterus can be visible because it has swelled so much. We caught it so early (we took her in on the 3rd day), that when they did the x-ray, her uterus was not visible. They gave us a few options, to spay her right then or to put her on antibiotics and give her shots. (Later we found out that these shots are to induce your bitch into labor so she releases all the yuckys in her system). Well we chose to go with the antibiotics, which wound up being just what she needed (she did not recieve any shots). The only problem is that if a person decides to go with the shots(inducing the female into labor and causing contractions), the female's uterus has a high possibility of bursting and killing the dog. We were very lucky to be able to save our lil girl and this is very important to us that every owner of an unspayed female knows that there is this possibility. Now that Onyx has had this happen one time, she is very prone to having it happen again after every heat. We asked our vet. 'Well we want to breed her to Rocko, is this safe?' and they said that we MUST breed her on her very next heat before this happens again. And after her and Rocko breed we are getting her spayed so this will not happen EVER again. Thanx for reading Onyx's story, and always remember to keep a close eye on your female.