Cora came into heat last Saturday and hopefully in 12-14 days she’ll be ready to be bred. In the mean time though this is where I’ll find Deacon and Finn.
Cora in the crate and Deacon and Finn circling her like a shark in a feeding frenzy. Fortunately, Finn and Deacon get along really well, so all they do is moan their lust to Cora. She’s quite funny in that even when she is standing heat, she won’t let them touch her.
Cora's baby daddy is a stunning dog at Belquest Kennel in Mount Airy, MD. He's BISS Gateway's Nothing But Trouble. He's got several dogs in his pedigree that have given the breed a number beautiful working dogs. Not only is he gorgeous, but he's a sweetheart and loves to play ball! Here is a link to his webpage:
http://www.belquest.com/trouble.html
What I am going to have to do over the next week or so, is figure out when it is going to be the best time to take Cora up for a visit with Trouble. I do this by measuring her progesterone levels. When it gets above 5.0 she should be ready. On her first day she was only 0.2. On her 8th day, she was still only 0.4. By her 10th day, she’d jumped to 2.1. Which means that a hormone called LH has started to rise and she will probably ovulate in the next couple of days. It takes a couple of days after ovulation for the eggs to mature and be ready to be fertilized.
The boys started getting really interested in her on Sunday, so I knew things were starting to progress! I drew more blood yesterday to measure her progesterone, and her level was 5.7, which means she's just ovulated. The best time to breed is about 48 hours after she ovulates. Of course, there is a massive snow storm scheduled for this weekend, so I hope to get things done before it hits.
Here's hoping for a beautiful healthy litter in 9 weeks.
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