you can go to bulldogworld.com they have a great paper on all that stuff, written very clear.

thanks for sharing

Question: Reliability of progesterone testing?

I have seen the progesterone testing of a bitch to determine ideal breeding times, to be off by as much as three days.....according to my stud dog...and the successful breeding LATER than the test suggested. Care to comment on this???

DrHutch: It is best if one can obtain progesterone numbers, which should not be a problem in this day and age. Progesterone tests are not species specific, so can be run in human labs, dog labs, horse labs.

The biggest mistake people make in running progesterone tests is they stop before the progesterone goes above five nanograms. The day the progesterone goes above five nanograms is the day of ovulation. The whole world revolves around five nanograms. T

The fact that we could determine just the initial rise (rise to 2-3 nanograms of progesterone) is a total fallacy. You must confirm ovulation. I start testing around day 6 of the cycle. You need to run your progesterone every 2-3 days.

Question: What is the most reliable in house test?

DrHutch: At this point, I recommend you find an outside lab to give you a number, as opposed to running in house tests; they are not as accurate.

Question: Doesn't the time lag cause a problem?

DrHutch: You should be able to get the results back in 24 hours max. If there IS a time lag problem, check with a human hospital, or if nothing else, overnight them to me! I can have them that same afternoon!

Question: What about the LH surge?

DrHutch: Because the LH test has to be run every day, and LH is species specific, and in most cases even running the LH we still put most faith in the progesterone tests, I do not run the LH except in very, very specific cases. And the bitches appreciate not being BLED every day for 14 days in a row.... the urine LH is not successful.

Question: What about supplementing progesterone?

DrHutch: The bitch's sole source of progesterone is the ovary. She does not switch the source of progesterone to the placenta like the horse or the cat, therefore it is very uncommon for a bitch to lose a litter due to a premature drop in progesterone.

Giving progesterone when it's not needed will cause birth defects in the female puppies.

If we need to supplement progesterone, I use progesterone in oil injections, as they do show up on progesterone tests, which tells us when to give the next dose. There is an oral synthetic progesterone called Regumate which is used on horses. It will not show up on progesterone tests and therefore will not be monitored.

We only need 2 and one half nanograms of progesterone to maintain a pregnancy. Most bitches during a pregnancy have 8-10 times that amount. A bitch dropping from 20 nanograms to 15 nanograms would still have plenty, and you would definitely not supplement.

I only supplement if the bitch drops lower than 5 nanograms and we have longer than 7 days to our anticipated due date

The bitch's due date, 63 days from her ovulation date, the date she went above 5 nanograms progesterone. Breeding date has nothing to do with whelping date It's the OVULATION date. So if you know the day your bitch goes above 5 nanograms, you can set her due date at 63 days from that as her whelping date: set up your whelping box, take the day off work.

Question: After progesterone reaches 5 nanograms, what are the best days for breeding?

DrHutch: The bitch ovulates an immature egg that has to mature for 48 hours before it can be fertilized. The breeding depends on the anticpated life of semen. A natural breeding can be done the day of 5 nanograms, the day after... the life of the semen is going to cover it. The fresh cooled semen should be 48 hours after 5 nanograms. Frozen, we breed 72 hours after 5 nanograms, because frozen semen only lives 12 hours. Slightly later is better than slightly early because you want the egg to be ready to be fertilized.

Question: Dr. Hutchison, are we intervening too much and harming our breeds with all these AIs, surgical inseminations, etc?

DrHutch: I don't believe that ignoring technicological advances, advances our breeding. I believe anything we can do to make breeding successful, like using frozen semen... is good. Anything we can do to improve our dog breeding and have more live, healthy puppies, interventions in safe, healthy manners, can only be a positive.

I think the Cornell study that showed you get more live puppies from a c-section, showed us that intervention can be a benefit by saving those normal puppies who by some reason cannot get through the birthing process.

Being able to go back to breed to frozen semen from a dog from 25 years ago can only be a positive thing, bringing some of those lost traits back into our lines Plus I need to do this, I have a high maintanance wife.

There were so many great questions, but we have just run out of time... we will have more information in a follow up email... but I just love you guys - you ask the best and the greatest questions and I would like to get to each and every one of them.

So many exciting things lie ahead for us dog breeders. Embryo transfer, in-vitro fertilization, frozen ova to name a few. Yet, I always am amazed at the number of people, especially veterinarians, critical of us for wanting to breed our bitches. They blame us for the great pet over-population problems, like breeding uncontrolled, mixed breeds is our goal.

Go forth, improve your breeds, and good luck on your next litter, it may contain the best one ever!!

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!!! Good night.

PCFFasDog: The Pet Care Forum and Veterinary Information Network thank all of you for attending this event tonight, and hope you enjoyed it. We especially want to thank Dr. Hutch for giving so generously of this time and information, and of course, to thank Veterinary Perinatal Specialties at http://www.whelpwise.com for their sponsorship. This event would not have been possible without them!

Goodnight and thank you again!

DrHutch: Thanks everyone!

Dr. Hutchison gives his permission for dog clubs to reprint this article in their club newsletters or publications provided the following statement is included:

Copyright 2002 by Dr. Robert Hutchison and the Veterinary Information Network, Inc. Used with permission. All rights reserved. Dr. Van Hutchison can be reached at Animal Clinic Northview, Inc., 34910 Center Ridge Rd., North Ridgeville, Ohio 44039; (440) 327-8282.

Date Published: 8/19/2002 1:42:00 PM
Date Revised: 12/30/2002

I have some repo links on this page - http://www.canadianbulldogstandings.com/LINKS.html
Also type in google canine progesterone testing, some reading should come up to help you learn target numbers, and when to inseminate. When to AI depends on what kind of semen you are using too, fresh/chilled/frozen.
there are different tests you can do... ie; have a vet do it in house, or have them send it out, or use one of the home kits yourself... they can have different measurments, nmol/Ng, and home kits only give an idea of what stage your bitch is in but no actual measurment for how much prog is in her blood, (the ones I have used anyways).





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