Boxer in heat

Question
Hi.
My sister brought her female (2) around last sunday, she was very swolen and my male went crazy. He tried his heart out for the first couple of hours, licked her all over, slept in the same kennel, but i am not sure that anything happened.
She has been her a week now, and is still a quite swollen and bleeding,
he however lost complete interest. He will just lick and smell a litte.
Is she still in heat?? Is my male too old (7), this will be his first time.
I want to send her home but i am not sure if i might ruin there chances of having a litter. The are both pedigree boxer, diffrent blood lines and very healthy with a great loving temperaments. I though they were a perfect match until now. Is this normal behavior?

Answer
Males usually know when a bitch is ready to be bred and when she isn't.  Given the decrease in your male's interest, I would guess she's already ovulated and the eggs are either fertilized (if he did manage to breed her) or no longer able to be fertilized.  You can have her progesterone tested, or have a vaginal smear done, but odds are the correct time for breeding has passed.

Since you don't know whether they tied or not, you won't know the exact breeding date (if there was one).  Generally palpation or ultrasound are done at 28-35 days post-breeding - I would probably pick the Wednesday of the week she arrived just as an average, although if they didn't have the opportunity to breed that entire week you would adjust accordingly.  Whelping date is determined from ovulation date, and estimated from breeding date - you don't know either, so if she is pregnant, you will have a wider range of possible whelping dates.  With a known breeding it's about 56-65 days, 63 on average; you'll need to add three or four days on both ends.

If she is pregnant - and even if she's not, if you plan to try the breeding again - you'll want to have both the dog and bitch screened for genetic conditions.  Outward health is not always an indicator of genetic health, and buyers will want to know what risk the puppies have of exhibiting one of the common Boxer health problems - some of which all too often result in the dog dropped dead at 2-3 years of age.

More information can be found here:
http://www.newcastleboxers.com/wannabreed.shtml
http://www.newcastleboxers.com/wannastud.shtml