Breeding

Question
I have a 4 year old boxer, it is 10 days after she was done bleeding, am I too late to breed her now?  she still has yellow discharge, but when the male sniffs her she sits down.

Answer
Dogs are in pre-estrus for seven days, they bleed for seven days and then are in post-estrus for another seven days. Total time is around 21 days.The time to breed is right after she stops bleeding.

Ideal breeding days are days 12-15. You are off by about 5-6 days.

She is no longer able to conceive and that is why she is sitting down.
She might still have a slight discharge, but in either case, it's too late to breed her.

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The total time a dog is in heat is 21 days. You can break that up into three time periods. They are swollen but not heavily bleeding for seven days(Proestrus). There may be some slight bleeding but more swelling then bleeding. That is part one.

They then have a bleeding stage of seven more days (Estrus)- at the end of that is day 14 or so. (seven no bleeding, seven bleeding).

On day 12 through day 16 are the days that you breed.

Basically it is in the middle of the bleeding, which will become clearish around day 12-14.The end of the cycle is Diestrus,(day fourteen give or take a day) until the end of the cycle at day 21 or so. However, they are only receptive during days 12-16(I typed them wrong before) even though she has a TOTAL of 21 days of heat. So basically right after you see the bleeding start to change is when you want to breed her and then again the day after and the day after. Usually by the third day (which is around day 17 or so) they stop being receptive.

I hope that is more clear than what I typed before. Here is an article that outlines it pretty well.

http://www.essortment.com/all/dogestrus_rkpj.htm

http://www.petplace.com/article-printer-friendly.aspx?id=2466

One of the best things to do for successful breeding is keep a log of the dog's heat cycles and each stage of it so that you get used to the days and time of each stage of your dog. Then you will know when the best time to breed her is.