hi id be grateful if anyone could help me. i have a german shepherd bitch of which i tried to have a litter from last season, she is coming up to 3 yrs old and hasnt had a litter before, she was mated twice and tied on both occasions approx days 11 and 13 of her season,she also dried up straight after the mating where as my other bitch always bleed for another week or so, but later on to have her scanned and no puppies, the stud i have used before on a different bitch, so know the problem isnt with him, she stood willingly to be mated and as it was first time went better than expected, anyway she is in season again in next few weeks and had hoped to try mate her again, the lady with stud suggested my bitch to have blood test to see when shes ovulating, just wondered if anyone knows the procedure to this, as i really want it to go to plan this time, im hoping my bitch is fertile and that i got timing wrong before, i know bitches usually stand when ready but this one is a flirt so cant really go by this, how soon should she be at vets for blood test when first in season and how often, this would be new to me and any advice would be very gratefully received thanks to anyone that can help.

Your vet can do a premate blood test, it gives levels of progesterone!  Our girl had 3 tests done recently, first test came back as C1, which meant not ready- day 13,   day 15 we had another one done, that had progressed to level C2 - we were told she should ovulate in another 4 - 8 days, day 19 tested again and the result C3 - which meant ovulation in 48 hours.  Our girl was mated days 20 & 21 and is now pregnant with 9 pups!

So the tests do work!  Good luck, it's a small price to pay for peace of mind

I had a similar problem with my bitch and took her for her first blood test on day 10 - it showed she had already ovulated but couldn't tell when so I went ahead and mated her but had no pups. The vet suggested I test at day seven next time and then every two days until we catch her!