TCI Dog Breeding — Wagmore Farm Cardigan Welsh Corgis

Now that Lexi May was in heat many things needed to happen, and happen now.

After my conversation with the repro vet, I talked with my co-owner and Grant’s owner to let them know that Project Puppy was in full swing. I called a nearby vet who does some repro work to schedule an appointment on Tuesday for Lexi May’s first progesterone test. That’s a little earlier than recommended, but since I hadn’t been home in a week, I wanted to make sure that we didn’t miss any days of the heat cycle.

Once I got home, over the weekend, I ordered Puppy Packs from ICSB (the International Canine Semen Bank – yes, there is such a thing). The puppy packs were sent to Grant’s owner so she could easily collect and ship what needed to be collected and shipped. Then I sat around over the weekend worrying that I was missing something, or was going to miss something.

On Tuesday the progesterone test indicated that it was still early in her heat cycle and the vet recommended her next test be on Friday. It was then that I realized that Lexi May had waited, and waited, and waited to come into heat – only to time it so that she was nearing the most fertile time of her cycle over Labor Day weekend. Which wasn’t a problem for the repro vet; she was working. But it WAS a problem for FedEx who don’t deliver on Sunday or Labor Day. (Neither does UPS, which makes me want to do a mini-rant about delivery services.)

The realization about timing led me to make a series of harried phone calls – to the repro vet (more than once or twice), the stud dog owner, my co-owner, and a long-time Cardi breeder I trust. I was trying to sort out how/if we could get semen to Lexi May on Monday or Tuesday. As it turns out, this wasn’t possible (shakes fist at FedEx). I could ship for Saturday delivery, but then the semen would have to sit longer than ideal, and the repro vet was not a fan of this idea. Since I feel like repro work is mix of art and science, and this vet is good at what she does, I did what any sane owner would do and went with her recommendation to wait (even though this was very hard for me).

We decided to have the Friday progesterone test done at the repro vet, which meant a trip to the other side of a major metro area on Friday afternoon, with the return trip Friday during rush hour. That trip took much longer than any human would like, but allowed us to get a test from the same vet/system we’d use for the all future tests so we’d have an apples-to-apples comparison for better timing.

The test indicated that she was nearing ovulation, and the repro vet recommended a follow-up progesterone test on Monday. Yes, this vet was working on Monday (she’s a saint, and I’m not sure she ever takes a day off) and I was one of many who were there for a progesterone test that day. I even met a woman from Nevada who’d been hanging out in Oregon for a month and a half waiting for her Dachshund bitch to come into heat. This made me feel a little bad about complaining about my drive. But still, the traffic… (Though it was NOT bad mid-day on a holiday Monday – it took me 45-50 minutes each way vs 1.5-2 hours in rush hour traffic).

Monday’s test told us she had ovulated already – probably on Saturday – making the ideal days for insemination Tuesday and Thursday. But of course the holiday weekend made Tuesday impossible, so the vet scheduled her for Wednesday and Thursday.

I communicated this to the stud dog owner, and she got things rolling on her end. We coordinated with the vet to set a time to bring Lexi May in both days.

Given the vet’s schedule, we ended up with late afternoon appointments, putting us smack in the middle of rush hour on the way home both days. The Husband took Lexi May in on Wednesday, and I took the afternoon off on Thursday so I could take her for one of the appointments (I was keen to know what happened).

Good news for us is that the semen was high-quality (thanks, Grant and Jane!) and the trans-cervical insemination went well. My role in all of it was to keep Lexi May as comfortable as possible (I brought platinum-level treats with me to help on this front). It was really interesting to watch, as they use a scope for navigation to get the sperm in the ideal location (non-medical terms). The procedure took a lot longer than I thought it would – and afterwards Lexi May had to remain standing on the table for 10 minutes, and was not allowed to squat and urinate for two hours. Which, since we were stuck in traffic for early that whole time, meant I could let her out of her travel crate shortly after we got home.

And now we wait to see if all of it worked. If it DID work Lexi May’s due date is November 3rd +/- 2 days. We have an appointment with the repro vet on 27 September for an ultrasound, which will tell us if we have puppies, but not how many. It’s surprising to me that we have to wait so long for a definitive answer on pregnancy, given how short the gestation period is. The wonders of nature…

So please keep your fingers crossed for us!