my bitch has just come into season she has silent seasons so difficult to tell right time to mate i will get a blood test done but was also going to try by salvia on slides on microscope to see what that indicates i have,nt done this before nor have i ever used a microscope SO no idea what to do can anybody point me in the right direction I REMEMBER  some time back it was a topic i,d be grateful for just what i have to do How do i get the salvia onto slide then do i put another slide on top befor i look also there are very small square slides do i need one of themSorry to appear thick but without giving my age away we never had to use microscopes at school only just introduced birds and bees in NATURE STUDY lessons but know a lot since then

Have a look at this recent topic http://www.champdogsforum.co.uk/cgi-bin/board/topic_show.pl?pid=746287;hl=matetel;hlm=and#pid746287
I bought the matetel after using Premates without success the first time, not saying they don't work though ;-) I must admit I found getting enough saliva a real problem but I think I managed to get the day of mating right. Basically you are looking for simple bubbles and line patterns when they are not ovulating, as they start to ovulate you look for "fern" patterns, once they have ovulated the ferns look like they are covered in ice or like a fingerprint...no bubbles. If you do a google search for "ferning & saliva" you should find some images, that might help you.
Never used a microscope but I would imagine you swipe the slide across the tongue and then let dry.

The small square slides are called cover slips, they're sometimes used and sometimes not depending what your'e looking at on the slide. Afraid I don't know if you'll need them or not, but I presume it will say on the test instructions :)

Interesting. I didn't know you could fern test a dog's saliva. I can't tell you about your use but I used to do fern tests on human amniotic fluid (to differentiate from urine) and we gently smeared the fluid on a slide and let it air dry. No coverslips were used. The ferns are really obvious, they do look just like fern leaves; in human at least. Fascinating, I'm off to search for more info.

If you have a microscope you can do cytology slides

The only bitch to ever miss after coming to our senior dog, came after the owner had done the saliva test.    Our dog, although he mated her twice, was not really keen, and when I took a vaginal smear and looked at it under my own microscope, I'm pretty sure she was too late coming here.

Wonder what other people's opinions are?

Jo

I kind of gave up with mine :rolleyes: I ended up going to the dog on day 15, which was really going by her behaviour as her colour doesn't tail off and she's not very flirty. The dog wasn't really a great indication because he is a young dog and probably would have mated her anyway. Fingers crossed it's worked ;-)
Using the Saliva method the only thing I did see was less bubbles and what "possibly" looked like ferns but I'm not sure as my eyes were going squint looking through the damn thing!! Although according to another thread on here people do seem to be having some level of success with it.
I bought it as I was travelling 260 miles to the dog and last time I travelled such a distance she had 5 premate tests and missed so I wanted to try and alternative.

You can buy a human Ovatel Saliva microscope on the internet for £14.99 or the dog one for £ 19.99 instead of paying £39.99 for the Matetel one,and it does exactly the same thing.[ not sure why they charge the extra £5.00 for the dog Ovatel when it is the same as the human but there you go]

I am considering buying a cheap microscope ,does anyone know what magnification would be needed to read the saliva smears?

We used 100x magnification.  You need to have really good light and we found seeing the bubbles/ferns easier after they had dried for at least half an hour.  We also didn't use the small rectangular glass slides, we actually used the glass out of a small photo frame!  It was thick glass and we found we had a better chance of getting a good dried glob of saliva to look at. I would also start on the first day of the season, so you really know what you are looking at and are more likely to see the change.  Good luck.

Where would you get a microscope from that was suitable, and how big a one would you need?
Jan

We just used our sons microscope, it was £5 from a toy shop! We got excellent results, but I know others have found it hard work.