This has happened before with my male and female, and it is happening again, so I thought I'd ask for some advice and/or experience.

My female is on day 16 of her cycle, and according to the progesterone test we did last Thursday (on day 12), she should now be ovulating.  My male, who has mated her before and is VERY experienced, tries and tries and TRIES, but so far he simply cannot get in.  Believe me, he really knows what he is doing and has never, ever failed to achieve his aims (he aims very well!)  Can someone tell me why it should be so difficult?  Last time, with the same female, he finally managed (on day 18).  Is she just too "hard" and the vulva needs to soften up?  With other females my male has not had these difficulties.

Can you believe it?  (Yes, I am sure you can....)  They just mated with a long, strong tie!  Such are the mysteries.  Anyhow, I'd still be interested in comments, and maybe others would be too. 

I had a bitch here to mate to a friends dog.  She had been tried by her breeder with a different male on two previous seasons, and this was to be a last attempt to prove to her owner it probably wasn't to be.

> and according to the progesterone test we did last Thursday (on day 12), she should now be ovulating.

Like you they had tried one progesterone test and mated based on likely progress of season, not confirmation that ovulation had occurred.

Bitch was very keen, had been so on previous seasons from about day 10, she was now on day 14.  My friends male (that I bred and had him come here when he was used) tried mating her, but to me his efforts seemed half hearted.

On day 16 I took her to the vets whose opinion was that there was no way a dog would be able to mate her as digital examination she found she could barely get the digit in to her first knuckle (medium size breed of around 19kg).

I took her home with all intentions to let the owner and breeder of the bitch know according to vet she was unamateable for some reason.

Let her out in the garden next day, and the boy went with her and mated her within seconds!!! He had shown no interest the day before.

So I would say that she is later ovulating than the early prediction from the progesterone test would indicate, and your male knows what he is about, and she probably will not be ready until around day 18 like last time.

One of my bitches was never mated before day 18, and her daughter and granddaughter days 16+.

And yes the Vulval swelling does need to soften to make mating possible/easier/comfortable.

Way-ell:  As you read above, they DID mate.  Whew......after all that trying, sometimes half-hearted, sometimes frustrted, sometimes really down to business, but until this morning (minutes after I wrote my first mesage here, about 5, to be exact) to no avail whatsoever.  And then:  bingo!  Just when I had given up all hope! 

Always the way eh! My older girl is apparently at an awkward angle, 'up and over' I've heard it described as, and a couple of experienced males failed to mate her. Then on the last chance season I managed to get a mating with a younger dog on the vet's advice, the theory was that he would be more keen. No idea about that haha, but this boy did also manage to mate another friend's bitch who they had always failed to get a tie with before, so perhaps he was just good at finding that awkward angle!

See - most often NATURE (and a good stud dog ) KNOWS BEST.

How I managed to ever get a successful/fruitful mating I have no idea because I never did all this testing -

Hi there! 

I too have almost never used progesterone testing, because the couple of times in 25 years I had a test done (not wanting to waste the time of the owner of the stud to whom I was bringing my female - this some years ago), it was completely misleading!  But this time we (my vet and I) wanted to make a progesterone test (these are also greatly improved nowadays, I was told by the head of the andrology dept. of the University Veterinary Hospital in Zürich),  as a C-Section is going to be necessary (my female - whose contractions leave a lot to be desired - will be retired from breeding thereafter), and a progesterone evaluation lets us know more closely when the ovulation most likely occurred, and thus there is a better chance of interpreting the signs and performing the C-section at the optimal time, once the birth process has begun on its own.  So that's why.  It's just a guideline.  Otherwise, I sure don't make progesterone tests, as my live-in male (my schnoogie-baby) is completely reliable and far better than any expensive progi-test.

If you are progesterone testing because you need to do a c-section, you need to absolutely pinpoint ovulation or you risk sectioning too early and before lungs are developed and the neonates won't survive.

To absolutely pinpoint ovulation, you need to do as Brainless implies and continue progesterone testing until you can see ovulation on the tests - due to the leap in progesterone.  A single progesterone test really tells you absolutely nothing, so I hope you are not basing a c-section on that

Thank you.  Rest assured that my vet and I have discussed all that and are well-aware of the dangers C-sections can present.  We are a good team.  And I have been through a great many C-sections over the years with no progesterone tests whatsoever.  It's just that my vet felt that because we KNOW that it will be a C-section, he would like to have an orientation for when the time comes.

I would like to thank you again for your advice.  I just spoke to my vet, and we are going to do another progi-test tomorrow.  He was very much in favor of it.