Round One: Done

As breeding adventures go, this was pretty tame.

The transcervical insemination was a bust BUT we had the ability to go directly to surgery and do an implant…

Claire’s progesterone took off like a rocket BUT because we were testing daily we knew that and used the info to go directly to the surgical insemination yesterday.

Another shipment of fresh-chilled semen hopped on a commercial Delta flight last night. At $93 for 1.9 billion, that is a REALLY cheap seat for Team Swimmers.

This morning we did one last progesterone, and Claire was artificially inseminated with the new arrivals — just a regular AI given that she had the surgical yesterday.

Now we wait — and turn our attention to Daisy, whose progesterone is at 1.77 this morning.

WHEW.

Have a great Sunday.

Puppies, Old (relatively) and New (hopefully)

This is Kadi (Wildflowers) doing a duck herding clinic. What I love about this photo is what it reflects — that this intelligent working dog is having an interesting life that involves fun activities that use her brain. Thank you, Eden!

This is a photo of Zeus and Buttercup, Kadi’s littermates.

Looks like Zimmer has some competition in the Freckle Contest! Thanks for the photo, Penny.

Those two get to see each other regularly because Team Zeus takes classes from one of Buttercup’s humans. I am so grateful to Georgia and Patty (Team Buttercup) for welcoming and supporting Penny and the rest of Zeus’s family into this fun world of Berners.

Pozy Clarkia has mastered retrieving.

She will find things to bring to me, presenting them with hope that I will throw whatever it is.

I love that she understands her agency, and chooses to engage. That is the foundation of a successful working dog.

Her training is in micro-sessions spread throughout the day — sometimes those sessions are two minutes and sometimes they are ten seconds. It is amazing what one can accomplish in a very short amount of time.

The breeding update is that Claire will be bred today and tomorrow. Let’s cover all bases, shall we?

Mayan fertility goddess, ixchel (source: Wikipedia)

And of course…

The world famous Lucky Green Socks!

Have a Super Saturday!

As the Progesterone Rises

Each morning I load Claire and Daisy into the van and we drive 22 miles to the veterinary clinic on the south side of Missoula.

Once there, each dog has blood drawn and put in the appropriate tubes for delivery to the human hospital. Some of Claire’s blood also goes into a small container so that her blood can be analyzed on a different machine as well.

We drive north about two miles and drop off the small container to a veterinary clinic that uses an in-house testing method, the IDEXX Catalyst, to measure progesterone. The veterinarian who will be doing the TCIs prefers the IDEXX values but my veterinarian always uses the hospital lab — so we do both.

Another four or so miles and the two samples are delivered to the human hospital, where a masked attendant receives them at the door — very handy.

Who knew there were so many ways to measure progesterone?! They include chemiluminescence (CLIA), electrochemiluminescence (ECLIA), enzyme-linked fluorescent assay (ELFA), fluorescent enzyme immunoassay (FEIA), and two that are impractical in clinical settings but are considered “gold standards” — radioactive immunoassay (RIA), and liquid chromatography-mass spectometry (LC-MS).

The hospital lab has a machine (Siemens Atellica) that uses chemiluminescence to assess serum progesterone in blood. The IDEXX Catalyst uses some top secret proprietary technology that they would not reveal when I called Customer Service to inquire.

Yes, I have been nerding out over progesterone this week.

The IDEXX Catalyst does not appear to have been used in any peer-reviewed, published studies, although I did find one presentation that was peer-reviewed. Instead, there is considerable IDEXX-generated literature about their progesterone testing.

HMMMMMM.

That doesn’t mean their information is wrong! It just offers the critical thinker a reason to pause. When the company selling a product tells you how great and accurate it is — well, it might all be true but consider the source. And if it is so great — where are the peer-reviewed, published studies?

Like this one, which did not use an IDEXX machine, FYI:

Hollinshead, F. & Hanlon, D. (2019). Normal progesterone profiles during estrus in the bitch: A prospective analysis of 1420 estrous cycles. Theriogenology 125:  37e42.

• Prospective study of 1400+ progesterone (P4) profiles in 1300 breeding dogs.

• P4 measured using electrochemiluminescence (Roche Modular E170).

• Relevant Findings:

  • LH0:  P4 = 2.7 + 0.6 ng/ml and/or double its previous value.

  • Ovulation estimated between LH2 (P4 = 4.8 + 0.9 ng/ml) and LH3 (P4 = 7.2 + 1.3 ng/ml).

  • Fertile period is between 10 and 20 ng/ml (LH4 to LH7)

I did say I was nerding out, right?!

You can use the above to understand the table below, which is Claire’s progesterone results.

Interesting.