Scenario - bitch whose progesterone is taking forever to rise. Cytology was done by the vet she lives with (service dog group owns her, fostered by a vet) - no further testing until recently, when they tested and found a level of 17! Vet (not a repro specialist, btw) said there's no point in sending semen because her opinion was the follicles are not well developed when it takes a long time for progesterone to rise, so don't bother sending semen to cover the bitch.

So - has anyone seen this or know if this is true? I've never done smears but have had bitches whose progesterone doesn't rise until day 20 and gotten large litters, so I was quite puzzled by this vet's prognosis.

I don't think that's right. Not every bitch follows the same pattern- the number 17 tells me that she's ovulated, so the stuff about undeveloped follicles doesn't make any sense to me. I'd breed her ASAP and hope I wasn't too late. We've had lots of anecdotes shared on the Forum about bitches having litters when bred later than desirable. Good luck!

I don't believe that for a minute. I've seen bitches go that late and have litters of normal size.

My Cherry used to ovulate day 23/24. Large litters.

If the vet was good at evaluating vaginal cytologies for cornification, should have been able to give you a real good estimate about when to do the first progesterone, surely should have done one no later than 80% cornification. Why did the vet wait so late to do a progesterone test??

Once the bitch ovulates, the numbers can rise quickly. My last litter, my bitch was at 42 nanograms the day we did the AI (3 days post ovulation), and that breeding was one AI only and we had 10 puppies. We had vaginal cytologies done and didn't do progesterone until 75%-80% cornification, ended up with 2 progesterone tests (first one 4.3 nanograms, then the second one was the day of AI at 42 nanograms). I love my vet.

This is a bitch owned by a reputable service dog group, so I was just sending semen for the cost of shipping, but this vet/caretaker decided she thought it wasn't worth it. I told them I had late-rising girls, but for whatever reason, they didn't want to pay $60 to have a box sent to them from me. I thought it very odd, but it was their decision.