Understanding Canine Fertility and Dog Breeding
Table of Contents
You first might be wondering WHY you would want to do artificial insemination and use stud service.
Here are the reasons for French Bulldog Artificial Insemination:
- Safety of your animals and other animals
- STDs
- More options
- More flexibility with timing. You won’t have to tell your stud owner last minute with a rush for shipping
- Color DNA
- Pedigree
- Structure
- Temperament
- Progesterone testing and Ovulation timing
Semen Collection and Artificial Insemination May Seem Intimidating.
I assure you it’s not! It’s a relatively quick and painless process.
Some people also think artificial insemination is painful for the female, but with the basic insemination, it is not. It’s a lot faster than natural breeding. The female might be uncomfortable, but she’d be uncomfortable either way. Often times with natural breedings you have to hold the dogs in place, so no one gets hurt. Either one could move, damaging the “parts”. When females “tie”, especially for the first time, she may scream or try to bite the male. Natural breedings can potentially last over 30 minutes.
There are 3 Different Kinds of Artificial Insemination.
Traditional, Trans-cervical, and Surgical.
Traditional artificial insemination just uses a pipette and syringe.
Trans-cervical artificial insemination uses a pipette and syringe. A small camera is then attached to the pipette. The female is numbed with a topical numbing cream, and then the ai is done. The camera allows the veterinarian to see where the cervix is and then they can place the semen where they want it.
Surgical artificial insemination, exactly as it sounds, is when the female is put under anesthesia and the semen is implanted directly on the eggs. Surgical ai requires the female to be monitored and limit activity for at least 7-10 days. Most breeders we know stick to traditional ai. The surgical and trans-cervical are both stressful on the female, more stressful than necessary.
Semen Collection and Artificial Insemination Protects Your Dog Against:
Unwanted STD’s or Potential Harm From Moving While Being Tied/Locked Together.
Breeders may allow their own house dogs to natural tie. However, with any outside dogs, they usually do not.
If they allow natural ties (even with their own stock), it is recommended to routinely perform STD testing, especially for brucellosis.
STD testing is usually done via blood test. STD’s are known to cause reabsorption, still births, and fading puppy syndrome, among other problems.
Do not allow your female to use the bathroom at all for at least 30 minutes after the breeding has taken place. If she urinates, all semen can be flushed out of her.
Natural Breeding | Tieing
If you don’t know what “locked together” means, when the dogs “tie” or breed.
They get stuck. Literally. He swells up so much he can’t pull out of the female. The purpose of the lock is to ensure the semen reaches the eggs; none escapes.
If it’s quick and unnoticeable this is called a slip tie. Ties can last up to 30 minutes, even longer.
It only takes one slip tie to do the deed and 63 days later you can have pups!
At first he’ll start to hump her. Once they “tie” he’ll hop off (may need help) and turn around so they can be butt to butt.
Semen Collection: Easy if You Start Prepping Your Stud From an Early Age.
Prepping starts at 6 months. It includes vitamins supporting reproductive health and desensitizing the dog to touch.
If the dog isn’t used to touch, most likely he won’t allow you to try to extract later or may not have any interest unless a female is ready to breed. Even then he may not allow you to collect the semen, only interested in doing it himself.
A normal dog will produce anywhere from 1ml to 5ml or more- Osiris gives on average 9mL. At 2 years of age they have reached their full potential.
When you’re prepping, even if the dog is underage, this is ok. It’s great to know what stage he’s at. AKC allows any male over 7 months to breed.
Clean him off with a baby wipe or wet paper towel to make sure any debris is out of the way. Use a semen collection cone to put over him for collecting semen.
When you grab him, there is a knot right before the testicles. Push the sheath over the knot and grab between the knot and the testicles.
If you do not push the sheath over the knot, the knot will swell up and cause pain, possibly tearing the skin. Also, the dog will not give a full sample due to being uncomfortable or in pain.
The first time often takes a while. But once he understands what’s going on, the whole process will take 5 minutes. Within a minute he should start humping. HOLD ON TIGHT and don’t let go, he’ll start pumping – his tail will go up and down with the contractions. He might kick but maneuver around it.
First, you’ll notice a clear liquid will come out. This is the prostate liquid, the purpose if this liquid is to flush him out of any debris, at this point he has stopped humping. He may or will stop pumping any liquid. Keep holding on. Once he starts pumping again, you’ll notice this is a very milky liquid (in the case of young males, may not be milky. It’s ok), this liquid is the semen.
The milkier the liquid the higher the semen concentration – which is GREAT!!!!!
The third liquid is totally clear this is the natural extender. When you’re freezing or chilling shipped semen, this is not something you want. If you’re shipping, as soon as he’s done pumping semen and it turns clear, stop the collection.
It is now time to check your semen under a microscope.
Checking the Semen Under Your
Microscope.
Invest in a great microscope. We use the Celestron LCD Digital 2. Make sure to purchase slides and slide covers.
When prepping your stud, before breeding, it’s helpful to have the microscope on hand to track his production.
Look at the concentration of sperm. Zoom in and check for head abnormalities, split tails, curled tails, direction of swimming. Do they swim in the same direction or in circles?
Once you think your stud is ready, take him to the veterinarian to have him evaluated.
This is important to know the quality of the semen.
Shipping Semen
Shipping semen is a great way to expand your limits. You can get semen shipped from all over the world. Which is great for keeping the gene pool expanded or to use amazing pedigrees and famous lines.
Make sure whether you’re the one shipping or having it shipped to you, that the semen being shipped is always collected by a vet. This will limit an errors on your or the sellers end that can make you the blame for an unsuccessful pregnancy.
Make Sure they include a semen analysis with numbers. In the above video semen was packaged by the breeder. The color was nearly clear. Even shipped semen should be WHITE.
Yes you will lose some swimmers during shipping as it ages but most of it should still be alive.
I’m not quite sure what happened with this sample as the color didn’t match the video that was sent to the client.
Sometimes people do sketchy things. The semen will be diluted, split, or whatever – I’m not saying that’s what happened here, but something wasn’t right.
The United States doesn’t have any import laws on semen, however, AKC requests a prior application to permit AI by imported semen. Exporting to other countries can be interesting and time consuming, but shipping within the sates is easy. Semen can be chilled or frozen.When Shipping frozen or chilled semen, extender will be added to it. Semen is shipped via Fedex. Make sure the shipped semen comes with a semen analysis from your veterinarian or that you receive one if you’re having it shipped to you.
The Benefits of Artificial Insemination are Awesome.
You can expand your gene pool, shipping from all over the world! If you find someone close enough to you, they can do an artificial insemination in person! Fresh is best!
You can pick and choose from studs that carry what colors, coat lengths, temperament, pedigree, and structure you’re looking for. Most of the time you can lock in a stud for future breedings, months or even 1 year before your female would need him.
Find health tested studs that are a great match for your female. Health testing can include a 4 or 5 panel genetic test and OFAs.
Artificial Insemination is Great When You’re Progesterone Testing.
Maybe your male tries to breed too late or too early. But with proper testing you can time it just right. You’ll know when to confirm the pregnancy via ultrasound or X-ray and when your litter will be due.
Let’s Explain How To Do the Artificial Insemination!
Once your female has reached correct progesterone levels and you’ve collected your studs semen it’s time to do the ai.
YAY!
Have her next to you and at the ready.
Tools You will need to Perform the Artificial Insemination:
Always use fresh, sterile products. NEVER reuse tools.
- Nitrile Gloves (latex kills semen)
- Pipettes
- 10-20ML syringes (we prefer the blue ones with the nice rounded tip)
- Semen Cones (bags)
- a Cup (place the semen cone in the cup after extracting to prevent poking the bag and loss of semen)
- Non-spermicidal Lubricant
- Have some wipes on hand for clean up after.
Sometimes companies even provide single kits, for those of you that don’t do it often.
Method for Artificial Insemination:
Draw the semen up into the syringe, filling the remainder of the syringe with air to push through the pipette (if he’s produced a lot you may need to do half at a time, or use a larger syringe) and attach to the pipette, set aside.
Put on some gloves and lubricate one hand (the hand you’ll be using for ai) and lubricate the pipette.
Lubricate your female.
Elevate your females back side. I like to put females back side over my legs when sitting on the floor or back feet on my chest while they’re on the table if they’re super easy to work with.
Sticking your finger inside of her, angle your finger up. You will feel a little jelly bean like thing, this is the urinary tract. Let your finger slide over top of it and press down. This will protect her from being irritated by your pipette causing inflammation or a urinary tract infection.
You’ll slightly be able to feel where the opening is. Run the pipette over your finger and direct it into the open space.
It may come to a brief stop but push to go deeper. The “riper” she is the deeper it’ll go – but it won’t go all the way.
You may even notice it’ll go deeper one day to the next. Once the pipette is in, plunge the syringe.
If needed – Remove the syringe but not the pipette and fill it with more air, reattach and push air through to make sure all of the liquid has been inserted. If you have 2 syringes worth of semen, do this after the second syringe.
Pull the pipette out with the syringe still attached. Leave your finger in.
Keeping the female elevated, Gently massage and keep it plugged for at least 10 minutes.
Massage her belly to try to release the air that was piped in before the procedure is over to minimize dripping/leakage. Some dripping/leakage is normal.
Do not allow the female to urinate for at least 30 minutes.
If you’ve received shipped semen, frozen or chilled.
You’ll have to gently bring it up to the proper temperature, sometimes you may even spin it in a centrifuge and use only the concentrated sperm rich part for the ai.
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