I recieved a phone call this afternoon asking my advice, I don't have any to offer so I thought I would put it on here as you all have plenty of knowledge and experience.

A friend took her 5 year old bitch to be covered today, this will be her 2nd litter. The lucky couple have met a few times through the beginning of her season to get to know each other. My friend knows the owner of the dog and is happy that the necessary health check had been carried out. The owner has 2 dogs one more experienced, one not. My friend has chosen to use the less experienced one as she prefers the temperament and thinks he is a nicer dog, he has sired 2 litters previously and done 4 coverings (2 on each bitch he sired the puppies to). Each covering took a bit of time due to his inexperience. SO!! today is day 11 or 12 (yesterday she was still a bit snappy so they left it there and tried again today). He was much more interested and kept mounting but not quite getting there, my friend was holding her bitch steady to help him a bit. After about 30 mins of trying she said he started doing the jumping up and down etc etc and thought he'd managed to do the job and was waiting for him to turn, he didn't so she looked underneath and found the dog fully on show but said not a lot was coming out. They don't know if the dog penetrated her or not.

Her questions to me were -
1 - why would this have happened? (I had been told this can happen when the bitch is not quite ready but I couldn't 100% say)

2 - could it be classed as a slip Mating? (I personally don't think so as they don't know if he penetrated her)

3 - when should they put them back in together? As he was totally uninterested after that.

Grateful for any advice I can pass on

What an irresponsible stud dog owner.  If someone is paying for stud services, they need to know exactly what has happened:  Was there penetration?  Did he ejaculate inside her?  Did they tie?  How long was any tie?  This information is part of what someone is paying for, with a stud fee.  They're not paying to leave their bitch unsupervised with a male and have zero information back about what exactly happened.  Someone needs to be keeping a close eye on the 'business end' of things, and it's typically the stud owner's responsibility.

>The lucky couple have met a few times through the beginning of her season to get to know each other.

This is not actually a good idea because the bitch won't be ready too early and it will only make her snap at him to defend herself from him, which doesn't exactly set up the right dynamic between the two dogs.  Some inexperienced males can then be put off by experiencing this and then reluctant to mate when the time is right for fear of getting snapped at again.  For the bitch too, it is stressful to put her in the situation where she needs to repeatedly tell him to bog off.  The bitch should only be brought to the stud when you think the time is right, not before that.

>Each covering took a bit of time due to his inexperience.

I doubt that's the case.  Many dogs take a bit of time to court and woo each other and get in the right mood, regardless of their experience.  It is part of the normal procedure that is mating, and nothing to do with inexperience many a time.

>1 - why would this have happened? (I had been told this can happen when the bitch is not quite ready but I couldn't 100% say)

Well it could be for 40000 different reasons.  Perhaps she had a stricture and he couldn't enter her.  Perhaps it was too early for her, or too late.  Perhaps he was inexperienced and couldn't aim right and didn't have an experienced stud handler helping him aim.  Perhaps he needs to stand on something.  Perhaps she was moving too much and he couldn't do it.  And so on.  No one can say.

>2 - could it be classed as a slip Mating? (I personally don't think so as they don't know if he penetrated her)

It's really only a slip mating if he not only penetrated her but ejaculated in her, IMO - and only the tie was missing.  Even if he penetrated her and thrusted a bit, it's very unlikely to see pregnancy without ejaculation.  I think you would know if he'd ejaculated in her and then come out as there would probably be a lot of fluid and semen coming out onto the ground.  So I think it's probably not a slip mating.

>when should they put them back in together? As he was totally uninterested after that.

Research shows it takes a stud about 48hrs to make semen of a good quality again, so if he ejaculated, it may need to be that long.  If he didn't ejaculate, then once they have had a bit of time apart to rest and get interested again.  But really - how long is as piece of string?  You haven't mentioned anything about progesterone testing to determine when the right time is, so you've no idea if you are early in trying to mate this bitch or late.  It's fine to attempt things that way (and lots of people do) but you should be prepared to risk getting the timing completely wrong and have no idea about anything.  IF you want to know when the right time to mate a dog is, the only way to know for sure (especially without an extremely experienced stud), is to progesterone test via the vet to find out when she has ovulated.  Personally, I use cytology (done by myself with help from my mentors) to determine when the dog is in estrus, and then I attempt matings throughout estrus.  If I don't get successful matings on the second attempt, knowing that it is estrus from the cytology I would do a progesterone test to check where we are at in terms of ovulation.  I find this approach minimises the use of progesterone testing whilst also being fairly accurate with timing.

> Perhaps she had a stricture and he couldn't enter her.

The OP says that the bitch had already had a litter.  Any stricture would have meant there was no previous mating.

Ok, true, maybe that one's not a reason then.  But the others could well be, maybe there are 39999 reasons then ;)

Thankyou for your advice, I have forwarded the information on to my friend. I did ask her if she had paid a stud fee to which she answered no and that she wouldn't pay a stud fee unless she had successfully tied (the stud owner was happy with that). I have to agree that it does seem quite an irresponsible way to mate the dogs.

> I have to agree that it does seem quite an irresponsible way to mate the dogs.

I couldn't agree more.  I have 2 dogs used at stud (2 different breeds.)  I have always taken my responsibility very seriously.  And always board a bitch for free if the owner hasn't got a clue when recognising if a bitch is ripe.

The majority of bitch owners have wanted me to handle their bitch.  I have a great amount of experience with maiden bitches, so it's usually a good idea for me to handle them.  I'm not going to force a bitch (and would refuse if asked) and I don't panic when we get a screamer.  My boys are so experienced that they walk away if a bitch isn't ready.  And I always allow courtship.  I've had some bitches wanting to be courted for 4 hours!  One owner got fed up and went to leave - and they tied as she got to the door!

I have a lot of patience with the girls, and more than give my all for a £200 stud fee!