Hi does anyone know anyone who does vaginal cytology in the north east? I have used idexx for the past 4 matings and all missed. Herpes vacs was done. Thanks

I do my own cytology.  I have my own scope, dyes, fixative and slides and sterile swabs.  It isn't very difficult to do.  If you'd like to learn how to do it, sign up at Avidog.com to their monthly platinum breeder scheme.  You can stay joined as many months as you like/need and it's a great group (especially the very helpful Facebook membership group which will help interpret slides if you share them in the group).

The thing to say about cytology though, is that it can only tell you when estrus is - not when ovulation happens.  Ovulation happens sometime during estrus, but there's no way to know when.  Cytology can tell you when proestrus is though, so you can avoid attempting breedings or doing expensive progesterones then.  Cytology can also tell you when the bitch enters diestrus, and from that you can calculate a whelping window which is accurate plus or minus 24 hours.

I'd be interested to hear more about your experiences with Idexx, if you have details - like the results and levels they gave you and when you bred etc etc, if you have that info.  Just because on our last breeding, if I'd have followed Idexx's advice/recommendations, we'd have missed.  We only got a breeding in because we bred before we had the results back.  If we'd waited till when they said, we'd have been too late and she'd have gone over.  So I can't quite trust them anymore either.

Thanks for that will have to look into it.

The last mating we did the idexx results were

Day 13   1.9
Day 17    11.2
Day 19    40
Mated day 20 and 22

Mating before that

Day 12   7.8
Day 14   21
Mated day 15 and 17

Thanks!  My experience is that we tested on day 11 and travelled to the stud without a result.  We bred day 12, then got the result from the day before at 4.9nmol.  Which should mean that we were far too early with our breeding.  The advice from Idexx was to test again day 14.  (Which would have meant getting results day 15.)

We were then stressed and gutted (and away from home). 

We just winged it and put the 2nd breeding as late as possible (day 15) and thought we'd probably missed, but were more hopeful when her season seemed over by about day 16....

When she whelped, we counted backwards to see when she would have entered diestrus and it was day 15.  Now, there's no way a dog should be able to go from 4.9nmol on day 11 to all over and diestrus on day 15.  It's impossible.  The only explanation is that the progesterone was wrong.

So I now don't trust progesterone (or at least Idexx).  We have another breeding coming up (waiting for her to come into season) and we won't be progesterone testing but just going for the most popular days for our breed and I think maybe spacing the matings out so rather than 48hrs between, there's 72 hours between, and we cover a wider date range that way.  I'll also be doing cytology, although last time that wasn't much help because she was in estrus from day 5 onwards....

There are other labs you can use though, and you might want to look into those.  The other possibility is there's something wrong with your bitch in terms of fertility.  Has she had a litter before?

It was two different bitches and both had had litters before.

I'm looking at other places to get progesterone done but cytology was another option.

What’s the best test and company to use to check when my bitch is fertile. She had her first mating , three successful ties etc but was empty when scanned so I want to be better prepared for her next season, especially as it a 5 hour round trip to the stud dog

>I'm looking at other places to get progesterone done but cytology was another option.

Progesterone and cytology complement each other but they don't really replace each other as far as timing goes. 

Cytology tells us when we are in proestrus, estrus or diestrus.  Ovulation occurs during estrus, but cytology can't tell us when exactly, during estrus.

The first part of any heat cycle is proestrus and this can be as short as a few days or as long as 20 days.  On her last cycle, my bitch was only in proestrus up to day 5.  After that, comes estrus.  At some point during estrus, she will ovulate - but we don't know when exactly and can't tell with cytology.  She may be in estrus for some time before ovulating, or she may come into estrus and ovulate right away.  So cytology still leaves a lot unexplained. 

Although my bitch was in estrus from day 5 last time, she wouldn't stand and flag properly for the stud until day 11.  So cytology wasn't much help for me - after just one or two slides, she was in estrus and it couldn't help me further with ovulation.  If I had a bitch with a really long proestrus, on the other hand, then cytology is incredibly useful because you can track that this is what's happening and not attempt to breed or even do any progesterone until she goes into estrus. 

And then there is some variation on the slides between bitches - some bitches show progression in the slides, with the cells becoming further crystalised and opaque and the nuclei disappearing (cells becoming anuclear) - whilst other bitches ovulate without those additional changes.  So you ideally need to know your bitch as well and to have followed her on a cycle you're not breeding on. 

Actually doing the swab and preparing the slide is not very difficult.  The skill lies in looking at the slide and interpreting it.  That's where having access to many other people who are all very experienced at doing cytology (Avidog) is invaluable.

If you were doing to use cytology 'properly', the way to use it is to use it during proestrus to determine when proestrus is over and you're into estrus.  When you see that you're into estrus, then you can start doing progesterone (with a reliable lab!).  This reduces the overall number of progesterone tests substantially because you are not doing all those early tests which aren't showing much happening.  Then, after breeding, you resume cytology to determine diestrus and get an accurate whelping date to within 24 hours.

Other things to think about are nutrition - foods containing flaxseed, green beans, peas and other plant phytoestrogens have been shown to disrupt hormone levels.  BPA can also.  Water contamination if on well water or similar.  And so on.  Again, Avidog is brilliant for diagnosing all this and provides guidelines on optimal diet for breeding.

Having done progesterone testing twice with 1 bitch and mated on said dates she didn't take. I was worried something was amiss and saw a repro vet, he also did progesterone testing too. I did just the 1 test for a ball park guideline day 10 and was told to mate immediately, this wouldn't have been a mate now with Idexx as previous misses.  Got 3 matings and the scanner said she took 1st mating which was from memory just over 20nmol.

Next bitch i went elsewhere for progesterone testing and went with their mate now, a number of slips and the next day a friends male wasn't interested so decided she had gone over. Not pregnant.
Tried again and said i wanted to know ovulation. I went up as she had just ovulated, now had i waited 2 days as per the norm i reckon she would have missed, she took on the 1st mating and the scanner measured them from the scan and said she took on 1st mating.

From this i have concluded the fertile periods for mine is a very small window so going the day when they ovulate and get a couple of matings is my best bet from now on in.

>going the day when they ovulate and get a couple of matings is my best bet from now on in.

Yes, this sounds like a good plan - the eggs take 48 hours to mature before they are fertilisable but the semen will be there waiting for when they are ready.  Also don't forget that time passes between when the blood is taken and when you get the result back from the lab and then by the time you can get to the stud.

>this wouldn't have been a mate now with Idexx as previous misses

I'm not defending Idexx (after my past experience!) but every cycle can differ for a bitch and when she ovulates on one heat cycle is not necessarily the same on other heat cycles.  There does tend to be a similarity or a 'tending towards' thing, so if you are taking a guess it's a good way to - and also mothers and daughters tend to show similar patterns - but occasionally it can also differ a lot without rhyme or reason.  So just because a bitch was bred on a certain day successfully on previous cycles (or wasn't bred then and didn't conceive) doesn't mean anything much for any other heat cycle - every one is different.

The only way to know for sure would be for someone to do an experiment and submit the same bloods from the same bitch to two different labs and compare the advice received.  Even then, levels can differ between labs - but you are looking for the big leap that indicates ovulation, rather than a specific number so much.  As long as they both agreed on when ovulation was, would be the main thing - not the numbers themselves.

>went with their mate now

Was that an in-house test where the vet compares colours on a chart?  Those tests are not as reliable and subject to interpretation by the vet as well. 

>Tried again and said i wanted to know ovulation.

It's always best to determine when ovulation is - that is where many people fall down with progesterone testing - they don't do enough tests to establish ovulation, they stop when it looks like it is probably going to happen in 2 days or whatever - and then the bitch stalls longer at that point, as can happen.  It's always best to test until you definitely see the jump in numbers and know that ovulation has occurred. 

The thing I always wonder is:  If, looking back over all our breedings, we had just attempted a breeding on two 'best guess' dates - based on what is most common for the breed - how many times would that have ended up being the right time?  Probably something like 80% of matings, I reckon.  And if, instead of mating every 48 hours for our 2 matings, we put the 2nd one a day later - so we have 2 days 'off' in between - then we will cover a wider range of dates as the semen will cover her for longer.  (Phyllis Holst recommends this in her book 'Canine Reproduction' - which is v good, BTW.)

We have to weigh up the STRESS (for both dog and human) in 'what is the test result going to be?' and not being able to plan the trip till the last minute and dog being repeatedly stabbed in the neck for blood draws etc with the certainty of progesterone testing.  (Assuming we have a reliable lab and do it right.)  Even if you get a miss every now and again with the 'most common days' approach, you have to weigh that up against the huge reduction in stress for everyone in the long-term with that as your approach...

Hi,
In general response ive always used quantitative progesterone testing. And not gone on say day 12 as an average. I went with the progsterone levels of when she ovulated.  Idexx used to have a local lab so got results same day but that never worked, the next day again never worked. The local person usually gives results within a few hours so the last time i got the results and within the hour en route to the stud dog.

Usually progesterone testing marks up when ovulated and they all recommend breeding 48hrs later, my girls were gone over by that time. So from now on in i just want to know ovulation and then i can get going.

When i look at the results from when the repro vet did the one test and said mate now she had only just ovulated that morning, the mating that afternoon she took from, her daughter the same.

Someone who has one of the other sisters went up and mated the day advised by idexx and she fell pregnant 1st time.. like you say not always a rhyme or reason but knowing when ovulation happened is a must for me as it does appear mine have a very small window before they go over

Yes, we would have gone over if I'd have followed Idexx's advice and re-tested when they told me to.  I know because I counted back when she whelped puppies to find out when she went over (you can do that to be accurate within 24 hours) and we would not have gotten to the stud in time.

> weigh up the STRESS.........> dog being repeatedly stabbed in the neck for blood draws

I only progesterone tested on one season, the bitch previously loved going to the vets, after three blood draws she later for the rest of her life would bounce in kiss the vet and want to get out the door again.

Never bothered since, but luckily in my breed have been able to arrange for the bitch to stay a week with the dog, either at mien or the studs,.

I really wonder how the breeders of my generation managed to breed anything! We guessed at the right day, often drove a couple of hundred miles for a single mating, and I can only remember having a couple of misses. No CHV vaccines either, but it was a rare thing to lose a puppy.

I kind of agree Carole, I feel things are getting quite over-medicalised...

Quite, really all we need do is give the mating pair ample access to each other, and allow nature.  It is because we want everything for our convenience.

In nature a pair would spend time together through the season and mate over the most fertile period often up to a week, or some just a day or two.

A lot less stressful and more pleasant and animals whose natural instincts remained intact.

Having hosted mating pairs and had studs to stay for mien as well as mine going away for around a week, it is lovely to see the courtship progress from, the boy trying his luck, and the girl saying no, too flirting, to serious business and mating, to a more Derby and Joan friendly companionship between the two before they were separated.

Later when these pairs have met up at shows they have invariably been really pleased to meet again.