mating our bischon

Question
Hello, Our bischon has now started her 4th menstrual cycle. We mated her after the as of the 10th day upon her 3rd menstrual cycle and every other day after that, a total of 3x's with full bred male bischon.  However, she did not become pregnant.  I was just told today, there is a way to tell it she is ovulating. How can I tell?? What can we do to hopefully get it right this time in mating her so she will become pregnant?  We paid $500.00 to have her mated and the owner of the male dog did agree to mate the dogs together again if it didn't work the first time. We truly hope this time it will work but do you have some good solid tips that could help this along?  Thank you

Answer
Hi. It sounds like you bred her on the right days. The first thing I would do would be to get her in for a check up, to see if she has any infections that may mess with the cycle or pregnancy. A few weeks before she's due to go back into heat again, you may want to put her on a low dose of antibiotics for about a week or so. There is something that can tell you if she's ovulating, it's called progesterone testing. If you go this route, make sure your vet is good at doing this and knows how to correctly read the results. This is the only test out there right now that will tell you when the dog is going to ovulate. I have a few good links on this if you want them. Another thing, is the male experienced and does he have pups on the ground? First thing I would do would be to have your girl checked out. Then, I would concider doing the progesterone testing. This is all that I can suggest right now. If the male has never had pups before, or if he is old, I would ask the stud owner for a semen check. Good luck, let me know if I can help with anything else.