My bitch recently had her first season. I say 'had' because for the last few days there was only a tiny smear of colour, and since yesterday morning there has been no colour at all. We have been through the 'dangerous' time where the dogs were howling and not wanting to eat, and she is now on day 22 from the first hint of colour. As it is 2 days since there was even the faintest hint of bleeding, I thought it was ok to bath her thoroughly and put her back with the boys, but they are still jumping all over her and getting very excited about her. I've separated them again, but is there any way to know whether she is still in season although there is no more bleeding or swelling, or whether the boys are just being hopeful because they knew that she had been in season before. Or do you just have to wait a week from there being no more bleeding or something? I've washed all the bedding several times too!

You cannot be sure 100% sure except by her reaction and theirs and of coiurse that isn't a risk worth taking.  If you own males it is best to keep them strictly apart for a week longer than the average 21 days as bitches have mated and produced litters later than 21 days in season.

I had our dog here to mate to my bitch and their daughter had just had a season and Dad was very interested in ehr until day 23 so I kept them well apart until she was 26 days and interest had switched to Mum as her season advanced.

Don't you find too that dogs that haven't been used at stud seem to take ages to 'forget' that a bitch was in season.  One of my boys particularly will follow my bitch around for about a fortnight after she's finished, despite baths, sprays etc! I've never had this problem with experienced stud dogs though.

One's been used at stud and one hasn't, and they're both being silly still. There's still no bleeding this morning, so that's 48 hours after last sign of anything. I'll keep them apart when unsupervised and test them once a day to see when they are ready to be sensible! :-)

I have never found bleeding to be a dure sign of anything other than the start of a season.  I ahve had bitches that barely bled for more than a day or two, and others have bled right through for a whole month.  The average bitch is actually most likely to be ready to mate wqhen the bleeding stops!!!  A mistake many novice owners maek when they take their very much in season bitch out for a run in the park because she has stopped bleeding, and hey presto the bitch is mated.

Yep, it is the same dogs owners who look at you disbelievingly when you say she finished weeks ago :D

She's definitely finished, she went through the fertile stage which was when the boys were howling for her, then they stopped howling and she continued to bleed, and finally she stopped bleeding Sunday morning. I expect they're just picking up smell from around the house still in spite of me washing her and the beddding - we've bought some carpet smell remover now! One of the boys is still mad for her, but the other one's almost given up now. She went to the ringcraft Christmas party last night and one dog kept looking in her direction and the rest weren't interested. :-)