I have a female that is 5 years old. We try and breed her every season but she never seems to get to the point of flagging the male and getting bred. Any ideas?

This is exactly the same situation I have seen with more than one female from my kennel. The first thing that needs to be done is to verify that the bitch is healthy. This is something that takes a good vet. Part of the exam needs to be a blood test for thyroid. Low thyroid is one of the most common problems I have with dogs that have breeding problems.

My female continued to bleed for a very long time. For years I got nervous and thought I was missing the breeding. I tried to do additional AI’s (artificial inseminations) - she never got pregnant. Frustration finally took over and ended up leaving the male with her at night. I would separate them during the day and put them together at night. I ended up getting a breeding on the 22 day of the bitch starting to bleed. So patience paid off.

One thing I always seemed to notice with a lot of females that are difficult to breed is that they do not seem to swell up enough. I have gotten in the habit of washing my hands really really good and then putting a small dab ( the size of a dime) of KY jelly just inside the vagina. I do not try and get it too far into her - but the lubrication seems to be the trick to getting a lot of females bred. It has become a standard practice for me.

With me it turned out that I was getting too impatient. I finally made up my mind that as long as the bitch bled, I would continue to try . You know the ship has gone to sea when the female no longer bleeds and is no longer swollen. But just because the books and vets say to breed on the 12 and 13 day of bleeding does not mean that this is always the case. In a lot of case these rules do not hold true.