OK, something happened last night that has me rattled a little and I'd love some feedback from breeders who have experience with natural breeding. I do not. Every breeding I have ever done for years has been AI.

I have two bitches in season right now and two separate yards, so I took the girls (6 total) and went into one yard. I let my boys (one yellow, one black) out in the other yard and kept an eye on everyone. I got a phone call from an old friend and talked until the sun went down. I had not turned on the light for the yards before coming outside because I never had intended to stay out so long, but I could see the dogs from a street light nearby.

My black boy was running the fenceline with the girls and barking a lot. He got really whiny and barky at one point and I yelled at him to settle down, which he did after I called the girls back to me.

About 5 minutes later I heard a lot of vocalization from the girls. It didn't sound horrible, but it wasn't normal either. I figured the congo line of humping that has been going on lately rubbed one of the old girls the wrong way. I literally walked 5 feet to my left to see what the problem was and in the sea of black faces was my black boy! Happy as a clam. My Houdini dog, who only minutes before was on the OTHER side of the fence!

When I came upon him, he was not humping the girl, he was licking her and sniffing her.

I immediately separated everyone and then the panic settled in.

REASONS I DON'T THINK EITHER COULD BE BRED:
1) My stud has never bred naturally. He has been collected several times, and even with side by sides he has never tried to actually enter a girl. If he was humping her, he would likely mount her half-heartedly and wait for me to show up with a baggie.
2) The bitch I saw him giving attention to is a maiden. I really don't think she'd stand for him either. The other bitch has been bred by AI but she also has no natural experience (and I didn't see him with her)
3) I had been yelling at him for barking, and saw him clearly on the other side of the fence approximately 5 minutes before.
4) I believe the vocalization that drew my attention was probably the girls reacting to him entering the yard and charging them to find out which one smelled so good.

REASONS I SUPPOSE THEY COULD BE BRED:
1) An intact male was in a yard with intact females in season, even if only for a few minutes.

The one I saw him with is his daughter and this could be really bad!
My thoughts last night ranged from douches to really rowdy games of fetch and long hikes for the next few weeks.

We have all had misses when everything was perfect.
Perfect timing, perfectly healthy semen, perfect preparation (antibiotics, cultures, diet, supplements, etc) I am scared to death that 5 minutes in a yard, WITH ME PRESENT, may have bred my bitch.

So, back to the original question. To those of you who do natural breedings, have you ever seen a boy "get it" that fast on their first natural try? Please tell me I am most likely panicking for nothing.

Plus, would 5 other bitches stand by so close without causing a commotion if a natural breeding was going on right next to them? I can't imagine that. Seems to me, if he was breeding her, the other girls would at least be running around excited, right?

This happened last night. Have any of you heard of any way to prevent preganancy if he did get one?

Left to their own devices...most boys can figure things out. My best advice...do not panic. Take her for an ultrasound at 3-4 wks. If she is bred and you are worried about the breeding, you can have the litter aborted using the new protocals with prostaglandins (sp?). (not the old mismate shot)

Years ago, I had a boy breed his daughter after breaking through two layers of fence. Accidents happen.

If it was only 5 minutes, I highly doubt that he would have had time to "get it", mount, penetrate and deposit semen in your bitch. The noise you heard may have been the bitch reacting to him "poking her". I would not worry too much about the possibility of a breeding taking place in that amount of time. Now if you came out and found them tied, I would be more concerned.

Good luck

Thank you guys! Thank you guys! Thank you guys!

I really appreciate your comments.

This is kind of what I thought. I have heard of boys trying for hours, and in some cases days, to breed a bitch who is receptive before finally figuring it out.

My thoughts last night were that it would be just my luck to have a reproductive genius on my hands. I just can't see him being successful with such a short timeframe and no assistance, just a ton of distractions from the other girls and me.

I'll do the ultrasound and look into thos prostaglandins. From my googling so far they seem very safe for the bitch and her uterus.

Anyone have any positive or negative feedback regarding them?

Thx!

We've only done AIS, mostly from shipped semen but some side by side AIs. Now that I have my own stud dog, passed all his health certs, it thrills me to finally be able to do this breeding on our 1 special girl who has had 2 litters to date.

I thought owing a stud dog would be a walk in the park, Just take my girl in for progesterone test and woola..abracadabra, the deed will be done and we'll have puppies soon !! RIGHT..first off our boy has been collected by me 3 times prior to our one girl coming into season 16 days ago.

My goal was to see if our novice boy would figure this business out on his own the first day deemed our girl was ready to be bred. We watched and let them do their thing. Our girl was flagging, ready and willing. Our boy gets way too excited with anticipation until he is using his rear legs, propelling himself up like Tigger the Tiger while humping her. He wears himself out so he never quite gets the job done naturally. I even tried to assist him by having my assistant sit in a chair against the wall, while I elevated our girl's rear a little so our boy could penetrate easier. He is taller than she is by quite a bit. Still he couldn't figure it out. He would try and mount her head then her side then back to the rear. Now I know our boy is intelligent in all other areas, how could he miss the boat on this important job ? hahaha
It was still early enough to give him another chance to do it naturally the following day. Same results so I decided to collect him myself. He doesn't like baggies so I used a sterile baby bottle insert which he didn't even notice. He managed to release the first fraction but I could not get him to continue on with the rest. I did the AI but found it difficult to get the little amount of semen from the pipette up the pike where it needed to go. I'm used to extender being added by the stud dog so this was a problem as I didn't have extender on hand. I did leave a little air in the syringe so I hope that propelled the semen up further.
The next day I decided to let our boy redeem himself without good results but I decided to give him a break and do another AI on the 3rd day. So now we did AIs on day 3 and again this morning. We did manage to get a tad more semen this morning but I question whether there was much more than first fraction again.
He is still going nuts wanting to get to her but now she is exhausted from our over zealous boy. They are done, I am done and have come to the conclusion that I much prefer waiting for Fed X to ring our door bell to hand over the " Hand Picked Chilled Semen "
How stud dog owners who do this on a regular basis get their boys to collect on demand or do natural breedings the first time out the gate should be given a medal of honor
Now in all seriousness, do any of you experienced stud dog owners have any advise as to how better assist our boys in doing natural breedings ?
Is it normal for a stud dog to only put out 1cc or less per collection ? Can my girl get pregnant with only the first fraction going in her ?

To the OP: Yes, I have used the prostaglandins when my girl was bred accidentally by her sire. She stayed at the vet during the procedure and was fine after that and went on to have succesful litters.

To the above poster, your boy is inexperienced and overly excited. You can extend your collected amounts with extender or the Minitube AI product to get the volume you need to do the AI. Once he settles down and gets more experience you will be able to collect him easier. Owning stud dogs is not as easy as some would think. You will be much more comfortable when you both have a bit more experience. I have a young stud dog that did this very same thing his first couple of breedings, we just extended the collection to give us enough volume.

To the above poster...chances are that 1 cc is not going to give you the volume you need to get the semen where it needs to go if you are doing a standard AI. It would be enough if you were taking her in for a TCI or surgical.

My one and only oops was accomplished by my 11 month old never been collected or bred boy in just under 3 minutes to a tie.
However, I would not worry if I were you since a tie lasts 15-45 minutes.

to Oops, see, your young boy genious seemed to get it all figured out on his own so why is it so difficult for other stud dogs to get the hang of what to do ?
Dogs go out in the street and get unspayed bitches pregnant all the time and on one is obviously coaching the male. I'm so discouraged right now.

He doesn't just stand there while I collect him. He is mounting, thrashing but just not entering to complete the task. We'll see if we get pups, but I'm not holding my breath.

I should explain that I have put this same boy out in the yard with an ovulating bitch, while I was indoors, watching from the window. He's almost 2 yrs old now and yet he's had ample opportunty to figure things out on his own and with me guiding him along as a last resort. I had another bitch who I wanted him to breed to a few months ago and would put the 2 of them together out in the yard but to no avail, he just couldn't figure out how to get things accomplished.
Around the same time, I was curious about what my young 10 month old boy would do if I put him with the same in heat girl who was ready to be bred. I was right there so he wouldn't actually breed to her but did an easy collection. He was like a pro so I have this young boy to compare my older boy who is seemingly a " Forest Gump " of stud dogs.

Well, I hate to burst any bubbles, but boys can and will tie and release within 5 minutes producing puppies...not all ties last 15-45 minutes...most of my dogs that have tied in the last 10 years have been 5-10 minutes and produced decent sized litters...I have even had one of my neutered boys breed a bitch in less than five minutes(twice!) Now of course I didn't have to worry about having puppies since he was neutered. If the girls are ready, they are ready and a smart boy will get the job done lickety split..

In your case though, I probably wouldn't worry too much, but as one suggested you can do an Ultrasound at 2-4wks and go from there...

"New to Naturals", you should have your repro vet collect and analyze your boy's semen, there is a possibility that you aren't collecting him correctly, or that he may have a problem with semen production that you are not aware of. I also wanted to mention, that air is toxic (and as an aside, so is rubber, use non-latex syringes for AI's) to semen, so you don't want an air bubble in the turbulence when you do the AI.

I had a 7 month old get a tie in less than 2 minutes when he was accidentally let in with a girl on her 23rd day. He got a tie and two puppies resulted. However, to get the breeding and release from a tie in 5 minutes seems unlikely to me. I wouldn't worry but would do an ultrasound and/or Relaxin test in 30 days to be sure. You can miss one of two puppies with an ultrasound.

Ties are not necessary for pregnancy to occur. It doesn't take much. While you're probably "ok", keep an eye on your girl, and either ultrasound or xray. Like Peggy said, an ultrasound can miss one or two, so I think I'd wait til just before "due date" and xray, to be safe, if it were me. Keep us posted.

I was going to say the same thing. I had one girl get pregnant w/o ever having a tie w/ the stud due to her having a stricture (it was a one shot breeding so I was there the whole time). 12 puppies resulted.

I had a male who when he got older, couldn't get the "thrust" to lock a tie, and this was before I did collections, and I just used to put him with the bitches,they frolicked around and he always got them pregnant without ties.

A friend had a bitch who was in and she wanted to breed her to her own, top winning male, but he had to head off to a circuit of shows with his handler. My friend just put them together for a tryst, it seemed too early, no tie though he was pretty "worked up". Off he went to the shows and my friend just figured she'd wait til her next heat. Nine weeks later, a lovely litter from just that little "sprinkle". So we can never be sure it can't happen.

Well, now I am stumped..Today I tried one last time to let my boy do a natural with this same bitch I've been trying to get bred this week. I think she is going out but he seems more eager than ever to breed to her. Some of the problem with this particular bitch is she won't stay in a stand position for long. We try and position her so she is facing me or someone else while we sit in a chair against the wall while our boy mounts her. Our girl could be some of our boy's problems and not just his fault, the more I see what is going on here. When I took her to the stud dog owner's house for her first breeding, the breeder tried to do a natural but my girl was not having any of it so the breeder did an AI. We had 9 pups. Then on her 2nd breeding, I ordered semen from back east. We had 2 pups. She cooperates with AIs beautifully but naturals, not so much. She doesn't get nasty with our boy and infact teases him to the point of ridiculousness. She smiles wide as she is rubbing on his side and really tries to get him interested in her but then when he tries to do his business, she will plop herself on the ground in belly flop fashion. I really wanted a breeding with this stud dog and our girl but it's looking like my window of opportunity is closing up. Hopefully, the 3 AIs I did on her with the 1cc each time will do the job but I doubt it.
The other thing our boy has been doing is getting an erection inside himself and it's very painful. He does this on his own with his excitement of her being in season. I feel bad for him. What is weird is when he I am trying to collect from him, his penis is thin but when he I am not doing anything to him, he gets engorged inside, causing discomfort. Why oh why is he doing this ?

Here in Iceland we normally just do natural breedings, and sometimes AI's.... I've seen boy's tie a girl within 5 min and than it has taken some much much longer to figure it out. I've also seen a boy "poke" a girl, with no tie but still with puppies... and also the opposite, a boy getting a tie but no puppies...
Last time I helped out with breeding, was with maiden bitch and it was the first time for the boy too. They met, he mounted her and they got a tie, this process took 10 min... I guess they where tied for 13 min or so.
Some girls cry or scream like they have been stabbed while others don't make any sound what so ever... I guess it just depends on the bitch.

I think you would not have missed it if he had bred her though, so I wouldn't get too worried!
Good luck!!