I had an interesting thing happen that I thought I should share with the other breeders on the Forum.

I recently had a scare with Robin regarding fertility. I had him to Hutch's in March for freezing and a complete exam. At that time his count and motility was normal.

At the end of March, he developed a nasty hot spot, and with Potomac around the corner, I wanted to get it healed up as quickly as possible, so, in addition to antibiotics, I put him on a course of prednisone. BIG mistake!

After Potomac, upon returning home, I collected him for a friend , looked at it under the microscope and it looked terrible.

I ran him back out to Dr Hutch's and was totally shocked at what Hutch found. In addition to a low sperm count, a whopping 85% of the collection had detached heads and/or tails! YIKES!!! Hutch ran a complete panel on him (including cultures) and all was normal. We discussed the use of the pred and he (Hutch) agreed that it could very well be related, and at that point all we could do was to wait.

Of course, we all know it takes at least 60 days to see a change in semen, so wait I did. It's been just a bit past 2 months now, so I collected him this past Friday, took the collection to my vet's office (so we could use the high powered microscope) I was so happy to see intact semen...heads AND tails all attached again. I plan on waiting another 3 or 4 weeks before having Hutch look at him again...from what I have read it takes 60 -90 days for the semen to come back to normal after using prednisone. Hopefully, things will be back to normal by then.

Normally, I wouldn't share this information on a public forum, but I feel that it is important for other breeders to know the ramifications of indiscriminately using prednisone on their stud dogs. I was foolish to use it just to cure a hot spot before a dog show.

I guess we're always learning..... and I sure won't make that mistake again.

warmest regards
Jill

Jill

I think the information is important to all of us. When we stop yearning for information, for something new to learn, it's time to move on. I'm very glad Robin is starting to produce good semen again.

His No.2 Fan LOL

Jill - thanks for posting this. You are a class act.

Best,

Greg

Ditto.

Wow, that is scary. Glad things are improving and thank you for sharing.

Hi Jill -

Thanks for sharing. My vet told me the same thing about 4 years ago when we had to put my stud dog on pred for a back problem. He told me not to use him for breeding until after he'd been off the pred for 60 days. Good information to share.

I'm glad Robin is ok! That was quite a scare. Good for you for sharing what you have learned. Give him a smooch from me.

Yes, thank you Jill. That was very worth while to hear. I like to learn something everyday and that is a good one to file away for future knowledge.

Very interesting Jill and thanks for sharing that with us all. A question for those in the know, would use of pred affect a bith conceiving if she was on it before a breeding? Makes me wonder now what it would do to her eggs. Lucky for me i've only once agreed to have a vet put one of my dogs on pred and that was for a puppy with strangles.
Aloha,
Jackie

I don't know about the girls but boy pups with strangles can go sterile after a heavy round of prednisone. 1 breeder I know, doesn't treat the boys with pred properly for fear of causing sterility. Sometimes you have to treat the pup's health and take a chance, especially if he has bad puppy strangles.

Thank you for sharing this information Jill. You didn't have to but probably saved some stud-dogs from a worse case scenario than you experienced. It's good to hear it worked out.

(((Robin)))

My vet had put this bitch puppy on the minimum dosage of pred for her treatment of the strangles, I can tell you that when I did breed her a year and a half ago at age 3 1/2 she whelped 10 puppies which was a huge litter for me, she was bred using frozen semen and a implant.
Aloha,
Jackie