Doodle Doings

in Reese’s belly! Yep, I can sit here and see ripples just underneath the skin, puppies kicking and wiggling . I love that!

Reese is my F1B Goldendoodle that is expecting her first litter 3/7. Just as with people, due dates in dogs are an estimate. The actual time that it is safe for a dog to deliver puppies is about 5 or so days on either side of the due date, so Reese could actually deliver any time.

Reese’s litter is a first in several ways. It is her first litter, as I mentioned above. It is also the first litter that resulted from a semen collection and insemination that I performed myself. As with any other set of skills, there is a learning curve, and I have tried collection and insemination two other times previously and the attempts did not result in pregnancies. So I am pretty excited that I got it right!

Only a small number of breeders utilize the technology available for artificial insemination (AI), and even fewer attempt it themselves, leaving those tasks to their reproductive veterinarian. In my mind, the advent of AI for canines ranks up there with the invention of sliced bread. Being able to use AI allows a breeder to consider studs that might otherwise be too small for the female, or that reside anywhere at all, as opposed to only those locally available. The chances of success in locating just the right match (in terms of coat, conformation, personality, etc) for a female skyrocket the more choices that are available. The opportunities for adding genetic diversity to lines are as wide as the world. In Reese’s case, the boy was just too short to be able to reach her, so AI was the only option.

The whole process of artificial insemination is not for the faint of heart, or the easily embarrassed, however. The broad outline of the process is probably pretty much as you imagine it to be. Semen is collected from the male, and placed into the female. Done deal, right?

Those of you who want to leave only those images in your head should close your browser window now, because the images that replace them will not be so simple.

Some males are easier to collect from than others, but in any case it involves using a plastic sleeve to collect the semen. Managing to control an excited boy enough to direct the semen into the sleeve without ruining his excitement is a real trick. And the process is longer than you might imagine. I remember reading an article about canine semen collection that said that just about the time you lost all feeling in your legs from crouching is when you will find success. They were wrong. The feeling had long left my legs by the time the collection was done, and that was only the first step. And this was not the kind of process for which one wants an audience either. Once when my vet was collecting from a boy we both looked up as a shadow passed by the glass part of the examining room door, both of us realizing at the exact same moment that if we could see into the lobby, from the right angle, people in the lobby could see into the examining room. There was a pause, and the vet said, “We really need blinds on that door. If my kids actually knew what I did for a living they would disown me.’”

After collection the semen is placed into a syringe attached to a long tube, and the tube is inserted into the female. The semen is deposited and the tube removed. Again, done deal, right? Wrong.

When dogs breed naturally they remained connected to each other, called a ‘tie’, for anywhere for 15 to 60 minutes. The tie causes contractions in the females reproductive tract that draw the semen into the uterus, and the length of the tie also insures that the semen has lots of opportunity to get pulled into the cervix before any leaks out.

During AI, of course, there is no tie. To simulate this the breeder, or vet, inserts a finger and pushes on the upper wall of the vagina to stimulate contractions in the female, a proces called ‘feathering’. The breeder then elevates the female’s hindquarters for at least 15 minutes, to avoid semen leakage for the bare minimum amount of time similar to a tie. So with no feeling in my legs, I was faced with just about the longest 15 minutes of my life, trying to keep Reese’s butt in the air. She thought this was great fun, and spent the whole time trying to swing around to lick my face. It was like wrestling an octopus. We did this 4 times durin one week to achieve this pregnancy. AND IT WORKED! I could see puppies rockin’ and rollin’ in her belly. Happy Days.