Polite alternative to the term "bitch" when referring to a female dog

I'm writing an example of constructing logic, and I need to differentiate between an adult female dog, an adult male dog and a puppy and am searching for polite terms.

Unfortunately, the word "bitch" has impolite connotations, so I'd rather not use it, but I'm not sure of any other terms for a female dog. Likewise, I don't know of a gendered term for a a male dog, apart from 'dog'.

Given the linguistic baggage that the term 'bitch' has in non-specialist areas, is there an alternative, polite term for a 'female dog'?

For context: in the logic I'm describing, if the dog is young it is a 'puppy', otherwise if it's female it's a 'term X', or if it's male it is a 'term Y'.

I think the obvious answer (the one you already know!) is the best:

• You can refer to a female dog as a female dog.
• You can refer to a male dog as a male dog.

Of course, if you really need to specify that they're adults, you could do that:

• An adult male dog could be referred to as an adult male.
• An adult female dog could be referred to as an adult female.

In circles where bitch is commonly used, I think dog is the male counterpart, believe it or not. Those two words would be the right answer, I think, if you hadn't ruled them out.

(My apologies if you're looking for something more esoteric.)

If you are referring to a breeding pair and offspring, you can use dam and sire instead of bitch and dog.

However, the best answer may be to use a different animal for your example. While many animal terms can be applied pejoratively to humans, few will provoke a visceral reaction like bitch can.

Pigs and horses make good examples because they both have separate, familiar terms for the species, adult males, adult females, and offspring, analogous to human, man, woman, and baby:

Pig: boar, sow, piglet
Horse: stallion, mare, foal

If you decide that you also need terms for young males and females, analogous to boy and girl, horses are a perfect fit with colt and filly.

It is not at all impolite to refer to a female dog as a bitch if in fact you mean female dog. It will be clear that you don't mean bitch the pejorative through context.

If you don't like using male dog and female dog, you could use stud for the male. You put a male out to stud when you breed it and that word is used for other male animals.

But I believe bitch and dog are the equivalents of hen and rooster strictly speaking about analogues for sex of course (obviously they are different types of animals).