Is there a time at which a bitch can not become pregnant in her season? When a bitch comes in to her season, how long do you wait before mating her? Also how long after a sucessful mating can you tell the bitch is pregnant?

Don't worry I am not going to be joining all of you breeders. Just wondering because our pup's mum has come into season! :D

P.S. sorry for all of the questions, any additional info would be great though!! :D

Hi Natalie,

If you are interested in a bit reading I would recommend you buy " the book or the bitch" it is fair cheap and covers everything you would want to know.

BFN Pam

PS :It is hard to pinpoint the exact days because each bitch is different and because of this it is recommended you keep the bitch away from male dogs the whole season. Some ovulate very early and others very late.

TBH Blue, I just wanted the answers to these questions and any thing that people wanted to throw in! :D I am seeing our breeder at Blackpool on Sunday, but I am very impatient, and want to know everything now! And that means right now!!! ;)

I'll do a search on the net and see what it throws up!

In reply to your P.S. If you wanted to breed her though, how do you know when is the right time?

Generally ( but this is just generally)

When I bitch comes into season she starts to swell, then starts to bleed a few days later ( some do , some don't , some just lightly) the colour then fades approx 7-10 days after this , generally the mating period is around day 10-12 but as you will see from some of the threads her they can be ready at day 7 and still not ready at day 18 .. It is usually somewhere in the 21 days though :-D. A lot of breeders beleive mating at day 12 rarely misses them. Any matings I have done I would say day 12 was probably the right day for them all.

It is a very difficult one to tell you 100% as like humans they are all different.

Blood tests called premate are very good at predicting the days for mating and a lot of breeders do use these tests.

HTH :-)

Thanks Blue :D Well I *think* she is past day 12 of her season so this may be a good guide. Woooo hooooo!!!! My Puppy could have been made!!!! :D :D :D I am all excited again now!!!

Just a twinkle in his/her mother's eye :-D

It can also vary from breed to breed and my freind who ahs been breeding sicne 1953 says that it has changed over recent years.  In the past it was normal for bitches to be mated around day 10 to 14 at the latest.  In thalst 10 eyars or so few bitches are ready that early and most seem to be mated days 14 to 18.  The breeder of your bitch may give you a clue as to what her female relatives were like, but even litter sisters can be very different.  An expereinced male will know when the time is right and may refuse to mate a bitch even if she is throwing herself at him, until he knows she is ready.

The breeder is using frozen sperm from her champion - he is absolutely gorgeous! :D I would guess that she will have to use the pre-mate (?) test to tell when she is ovulating.

Generally there are two parts of the season, the first part is proestrus when they are bleeding, tehn estrus when they ovulate and will accept a male.  Unfortunatly it is impossible to tell when one ends and the other begins. 

A bitch can only actually conceive around about two days after ovulation and the eggs remain viable for another two days. 

A males sperm can stay alive for about a week, and for at least 4 days,
so pups can result from a mating from 5 days before ovulation up to 4 days after. 

To make it even more complicated some bitches ovulate as early as 3 days into their sesn or s late as 25 days after the season starts.  Most bitches will be willing to stand for mating over about 5 days, but certainly no more than a week.

For this reason a bitch shoudl be kept away from any male dog from the start of the season to nearer four weeks after it starts than three.

Thanks Brainless :D So I am no where closer to pre-guessing if when we get Blackpool, our breeder will be saying she has been mated!! This waiting game is really hard!!! I can't imagine being the breeder, I don' know how they do it!!

So what would be the first signs of pregnancy, either physical signs or through a blood test, how early can the pregnancy hormone (if dog's has these!) be detected?

Hi Natalie, you would love 'The Book of the Bitch', it's about £10.00 from Amazon.

Dawn R.

Nursey,

I am guessing at the moment that the breeder will be using frozen sperm - on her website for this particular dog it states that frozen sperm is available, I thought that perhaps because the dog is older, but had earned a champion title that the KC would let this happen. I am seeing our breeder tomorrow at Blackpool so obviously I will ask her, the pup's are definatly going to KC registered, so from what you said on your post (that has now dissapeared????) maybe the frozen sperm had been collected for use abroad, and I am putting two and two together and making 5!

Yet another question to add to the list...!

Yes Natalie, I did post about frozen sperm not being acceptable to the KC, if the dog is alive and living in the UK. I still do believe that to be true, but I might indeed be wrong. However, if I'm right, the breeder might choose to get around that, by simply fibbing about the mating. So I deleted my post. She might well do a conventional, natural mating either.

Sorry for any confusion caused by my deleting the post.

Dawn R.

Just incase you were wondering, I have seen our breeder today, and she laughed at me when I said I thought they were using frozen sperm! However the bitch she was going to use, has not taken but she is going to try with bitch who is due in any minute so fingers crossed it might work this time :D