I asked my vet for info on the progesterone blood test to find out optimum day for mating.

I was told it would have to be after day 6 and she would need to be re tested every 48 hours for the levels, and at £62 per time.

Any advice would be great, is he correct? and how many of you do the test? How many times do you normally need it done?

My bitch is seperated from my dog when in season but on day 13 she is desperately trying to get him out of the crate and rubs her bits all up the front of his cage. Is this a good sign that she is ready?

Many thanks in advance

>on day 13 she is desperately trying to get him out of the crate and rubs her bits all up the front of his cage.

Your poor, poor dog must be terribly frustrated and stressed at this. Please, at least put him upstairs and the bitch downstairs (or vice versa) when she's in season. Ideally one of them would go and stay with friends at this time.

He has not or ever will be used for breeding and he has never shown any interest in her.
we are not using him she will be going to an outside stud.
He has never shown any signs of stess, has never tried to mount her, escape at all. so I don't feel the need to remove him when he is quite happy.
these incidents only occur in between her coming past him to her crate for time out so he can come out and have his cuddle and exercise time.
I just notice that on day 13 she is more frisky.

If i thought my boy was by any means stressed i would remove him, and after all it is not always possible to have a friend look after a dog for a month.
I am not new to the breed just new to breeding

this will be my first mating and litter.

I was only asking for advice on the test as if it is worth doing in other peoples experience?

Your dogs, your choice. I still think it's unnecessary teasing for one or both of them.

As for the progesterone testing; some people have found it useful and others haven't. Were you planning on having your vet do it in house or send it off?

they would have to send it off.

>Is this a good sign that she is ready?<br />

Nope!  :-)   Bitches can be utter trollops, and often flag when not ready (although my experienced boy is a good indicator!)

Often he will ignore a tarty bitch, and it's because he smells she's not ripe.

Yes, testing can be that expensive, although some bitches can fool you.  One of mine, who was a swine to get pregnant, was tested from day one, and she ovulated on day 4, so when you start testing can be hit and miss.

My girl was standing for the male from day 7 and was way off even ovulating (tested on the day for the first time)....
Progesterone testing however told us she ovulated on day 12 and he mated her on day 14, would not mate before that so it all tied in together.
He would just court and play & keep close eye on her. If we were not testing, from her behaviour I would have got stressed we are going to miss it as she was soooo ready but he said no, not wasting my energy :-). She is expecting a large litter from that one mating.

I think it is also useful to know what is going on as lets say she misses, if you have done testing you know you mated at the right time etc so helpful for the next time. If you have not tested, you are left wondering if you mated too early/late and I have also known of a bitch who never ovulated on a season (the male knew this though and would not mate), again because of the testing they knew it was not that he did not wish to perform but that for some reason she never ovulated... This was recently so maybe she will have a split season and will go on full blown season at later date, again useful to know the season she had was not a full one so if she goes to continue, they know it might be a split season and not get overly worried if she comes in again soon.

> I was told it would have to be after day 6 and she would need to be re tested every 48 hours for the levels, and at £62 per time.

When I had ir done it cost me £5 for the nurse to take the blood, £5 to send the samples to the lab and £23 to test the progesterone levels.

I found it very interesting as the tests said my girl ovulated and the Thrsday would be the optimum time for mating. At this time she would stand for one of my boys but not the other. Not that she got to mate either of them but I was using them to judge whether she was ready.

What was interesting was that the boys started going absolutely mad for her on the Saturday when according to the tests she had gone over.  This might explain why she missed on her previous season as I mated her when my boys said she was ready which was very late in the season.

> I found it very interesting as the tests said my girl ovulated and the Thrsday would be the optimum time for mating.

It's just probably how you have written it and did not mean she ovulated on Thursday but the eggs were ready then(having ovulated few days prior)? If she did ovulate on Thursday, Saturday would have probably been the optimum day to mate as the eggs take some time to mature after ovulating has happened...

Sorry yes, Blood was taken on the Tuesday and when tested showed she had already ovulated and I was told that the Thursday was the idea day for mating.
It all got a bit complicated because I missed the first days of her season as I was away and the kennel didn't spot the first day so I wasn't quite sure when she started. And then a Bank Holiday meant I couldn't get the blood taken until Tuesday. A previous sample taken On the Thursday before showed very low levels.

The Thursday would have been the first day of any ripe eggs being present, but Saturday would be the day when she was starting to go over, but very much still fertile, so the boys going bonkers is usual as they know they will miss the boat if they don't get to her.