Breeding German Shepherd Dogs : What You Need to Know (2018)
way now guys it is really time to
discuss breeding german shepherd dogs in
2019 and really discuss what you guys
need to know and the great thing about
this topic is you know we’re going to
talk about my favorite topic in the
world which is canine reproduction after
all that’s what I’m an expert in
basically and it’s kind of interesting
you know people always assume that dogs
all work the same and when I met you
guys when you know we do lectures with
my colleagues like Emily and period at
work I I say something and then there’s
always somebody in the room who will
tell me well you know what Jack this
what you just said does not apply to me
because I braid XYZ I know always I
don’t always agree on that but it is
true that some breeds do a specificity
and in canine repro one thing I can tell
you is that German Shepherds sure do
they do have unique reproductive
features so to speak and you see when I
stopped in my career at the vet school
in Paris we were basically working with
10 to 12 different German Shepherd
bitches on a weekly basis so I have the
opportunity to work with many German
Shepherd breeders
I have lots of stories to tell lots of
info to share with you guys but Emily
didn’t mention it but I am guys if you
attended to some webinars in the past
probably know that I’m quite talkative
so for times sake tonight we will only
stick to three clinical cases and if you
want more you know what at the end we
will add a Q&A so you will add the
opportunity to ask me any questions you
want related to canine repro in German
Shepherd so without further ado let’s
dig in and let’s start with our first
clinical case I want to tell you about
the story of Tanya Tanya was a
two-year-old German Shepherd bitch I
first saw in the spring of 2005 in Paris
that doesn’t make me feel any younger
but you see her owner was about to greet
earth for the first time she was a
preemie Paris bitch and you know in
France nearly all my clients breeding
German shepherds when they wanted to
bring their bitches well you know what
they would go
to Germany think there’s a song called
to Germany with love but I’m not sure it
across the ocean but anyway but Germany
one thing even to know for his French
people Germany is a long long way from
friend so very long drive in European
standards at least and I know I when I
say that it keeps making you guys laugh
in North America but hey look at the map
you are visibility waste model so
Germany is a very long way from Trent
and on top of that in Germany my German
Shepherd breeders would only be allowed
one breeding the code is because this a
one-shot breeding of course they wanted
to optimize your chances here they
wanted to make sure that if they were
driving to Germany for one reading that
they maximize their chance to add status
and for that you know today in the beach
there is one thing you need to know one
thing super important in order to
maximize your chances in order to
optimize fertility and productivity
which is the number of puppies in the
litter you need to know the day of
ovulation in the pitch and they are
plenty of things we could say about that
one thing I want you to remember there
today no better way to do that then what
we call progesterone testing this is
still the gold standard in canine
reading so this is a procedure we call
timing of ovulation and I could spend
easily 1/2 hours discussing it but you
know what guys in the past we did a
webinar on this very topic and if you’re
interested in what I will do right now
live I will share with you on the chat
right here took two quick everything is
done live time so I will share with you
this link to a presentation we did on
this topic so if you are interested in
you can check this presentation later on
we view it it will cover all the most
common techniques that exist today
around the world to do timing of
ovulation in canines but at the end of
the day the gold standard the best
technique remain remain remain doing
conscious road tests drawing blood
during the season determining the level
of progesterone and with that
determining the day of ovulation
and this is today the goaltender and
that’s why those German Shepherd
breeders we are coming to see us in
Paris because they wanted us to do these
tests to tell them ok this is when you
need to go to Germany to with your bitch
and you see when we do those
consultations in canines we always start
with something we call an animal
anamnesis which basically means we
collect data and info regarding the
history of the beach and one key
question I would always ask the owner
here how often is the beach in season
how often does she cycle in street Oh
believe me that’s always the first
question we start with when we have
those kind of discussion and you see
Tanya owners was definitely not too much
of a masters of the math version but he
must have known that the question was
coming you know because as soon as I act
in the question well he gave me this so
you see this is a copy of Tanya’s
records that I used for this
presentation but you see she had a first
season on in December 2004 and then she
was in season in April in August in
December and I was seeing her at the vet
school in March of 2005 so tell me guys
what do you think he what do you think
if one of your bitch was cycling like
this what would you think if she was in
season that if she had this pattern what
would you think tell me on the chat if
one of your bitch if this is what you
had recorded on one of your bitch on one
of your breeding Beach what would you
think tell me on the chat what’s your
opinion here
you see she she started offseason
December 2005 and then she cycle she was
in season in April
August December and then again March
2005 tell me on the chat what do you
think here if that was one of your bitch
what would you think about that and
don’t be shy guys remember I’m the one
not speaking English here
so somebody stays over Thank You Amit it
seems like a lots of seasons
often every hormones too close for
relation
okay I see all the answers showing up
hey guys one thing first thing I want to
tell you about this document what kind
of document I should say but this page
here you see it brings up a very
important point we always discuss with
you the burritos you need to record when
your bitches are in season you must
write those write down those day oh we
call them in an excel sheet if you’re
picky but you say this is good practice
and I would even say this is kind of
mandatory because when you visit a repro
vet like me this question is really on
top of the list sometimes people tell me
or she is cycling on a regular basis
she’s regular this is not an answer
accurate enough for me if we go back to
to the notepad Tanya Tonya’s on your
shoulders if we go back to this nut bag
you see in fact this is what we would
say this is what’s happening in fact
here so you see what we call the
interest interval the interval between
two seasons hormones hormones hormones
three months
look at that and now guys tell me if one
of your bitch was fighting that often
what would you think of here nothing to
worry about maybe an ovarian cyst
maybe this bitch is suffering from what
we call details Taylor maybe
hypothyroidism what would you think of
if one of your breeding bitch was
cycling like Tonya every four months
every basically every four months what
would you think of tell me on the chat
what’s your opinion here
you
five four three two one okay fifty
percent of you paying for the things
that we are dealing here with an ovarian
cyst
so you think eyes in canine in canine we
prove one thing which is key is what we
call regularity
I’m sure you looked at some textbook so
you might have veterinarians like me
mentioning it during lectures which is
typically cycle twice a year every six
month that’s typically what we see in
average however here German shepherds
you know what they are quite unique
because in this breed it is really not
uncommon to see bitches cycling
every four to five months so that’s
something I would expect especially in
German shepherds
so I’ve seen German shepherds tightening
every 4 moles which mean three times a
year and adding normal size litre adding
no fertility issues so as long as they
are regular here as long as they are
cycling every four month and they are
regular typically usually there’s no
need to worry
it might be totally normal here
but you see when I was seeing Tanya when
I looked at the paper I was okay with
those number of hormones hormones
problems okay
she was regular but something caught my
attention this one here
three moms Tremont even if it’s a German
Shepherd bitch can cycle every four
months this three-month interest rates
interval I really seem to shock to me
and when we see this we refer vet
immediately think of Valley insist
especially ovarian cysts that are
producing estrogen because one of the
clinical symptom will expect to see in
those cases is what we call mean for
mania a bitch that suddenly start to
cycle more often eventually every three
months so this is what we would think of
a meta P here so if we think of an
ovarian cyst
how would you check that out how would
you confirm the fact that the beach is
suffering from an ovarian cyst would you
do an abdominal palpation trial to
palpate the abdomen to try to fill the
cysts would you draw blood and do a
blood analysis would you do an
ultrasound or would you use Emma hi so
what would be the best tool here to
diagnose and advances in a bitch
you
five four three two one and I think we
all agree a hundred percent of you
believe that we need to use you to sound
and I’m a big fan of your true self I
think this is a fantastic tool and when
we work in k9 we pro honestly I was
doing infrasound every day several times
a day because that’s one of the best
tool that give us access to what’s
happening on the things on the genital
tract especially the ovaries and the
uterus definitely the best technique to
check if there’s an ovarian cyst here
and always something we will consider
off your hand when we deal with any
infertility issue in canines or when we
deal with the case like Tanya here that
apparently the interest rates interval
is shorter than expected when the bitch
is cycling more than often so in the
case of Tanya we went straight to the
ultrasound machine we check the ovaries
and in German Shepherd which actually
have great pictures great definition
because in your breed we don’t have a
lot of abdominal fat so the ultra the
ultrasound definition is usually very
good especially with the machines we are
this day and you think Tanya that’s what
we could see so this is beautiful guys
so let me show you so you see this is
the overly right here and inside its
ovary maybe you guys see those black
structures here which are roughly 0.5
centimeter in diameter those are what we
call ovarian follicles
this is a beautiful ovary beautiful
other way with big follicles and in fact
in those follicles in those things I
highlighted in green here this is inside
what you are the eggs that I’m going to
be related and later fertilized by the
sperm of the male so this is absolutely
normal
this is what I expect to see in a bitch
that is in season but is getting closer
close to ovulation
there’s no valiant is here well violence
is usually look like this so you see
those structures are much bigger
typically and alliances is we will
describe an evaluation sit as a round
shaped structure like this big black
bowl that you can see on the ovary which
is more than one centimeter Indiana
and this is sitting basically inside or
only over it to see we have three of
them here those are all very insist we
didn’t see that in Tonya in Tonya again
look see of a result the other is
beautiful it’s right here it’s really
beautiful they have no structure that is
that big that will make me think there’s
an ovarian cyst nothing that could
explain the fact that she is cycling
shared the three months in service to
think about so you see in this situation
there was nothing abnormal on the
ovaries so no variances my conclusion
was that you know what nothing abnormal
then let’s start doing the timing of
ovulation and then when we will have
detected when we would have detected the
day of ovulation the witch will go to
Germany for breeding
the story doesn’t end here obviously
later that week I we discussed that case
with my former boss during our weekly
round you know and to tell you the truth
I thought we would go over this case
very quickly because well found it to me
like a regular timing of ovulation in a
premie thomas bitch i mentioned that i
found the interest rate interval to be a
bit shocked but i did an ultrasound and
everything looked okay there was no
variance it and you see as soon as i
finish my sentence my former boss stood
up and he went straight to his computer
we went to publish the scientific
articles search engine all scroll out
use across the world and he uploaded
this this article that was talking about
short interest interval infertility in
bitches with shop interest rates
interval we applauded that and he later
he told me about something we called
soft and astra syndrome
and he added on top of that now as you
see we often see this problem in German
Shepherd ditches
okay so according to you what might
happen here what might be the issue here
if Tonya is suffering from which shop
understood syndrome we have no problem
my boss was originating
maybe she’s not going to ovulate maybe
she’s not going to get pregnant or maybe
she’s going to abort
according to you you she’s suffering
from a shop and a stress syndrome what
might be the issue what do you think is
going to happen here
you
five four three two one
okay so let’s see the results
okay so 50% of you guys believe there
will be no gestation for you guys in
this situation
Tania would have probably ovulated she
will die populated normal eggs that
would have certainly be fertilized by
the males Promotora both eggs would have
done in two embryos exactly what we
expect them to do except that those
embryos might not have been able to
attach to Tanya’s uterus because at the
time of the pregnancy diagnosis three
four weeks after the breeding we would
have seen nothing because of this shot
under stress syndrome thing so let me
explain a very specific feature of the
canine uterus during your season the
bitch is going to ovulate and the other
reason will bear what we call control
idea those structures that will produce
progesterone for around tumor whether
the bitch is pregnant or not and after
two months you see they have no more
project on the projects equation drops
and the bitch gives birth or basically
enters what we call a mistress the this
period where when there is no almond on
impregnation however something is going
to happen at the level of the uterus
after most amount something we call
uterine involution
let me I like this uterine involution to
make it super short this is kind of a
regenerative process that is necessary
for the uterus to accept a new pregnancy
and this regenerative process basically
takes two to three modes
so if the bitch cycles every three
months there is basically not enough
time for this uterine involution for
this regenerative process to happen you
see in Tania’s case because of this
three-month interval should interest
interval the uterus didn’t have enough
time to go back to its initial state she
cannot get pregnant it’s not possible
everything else seems to work well but
because this uterus is not back to its
original state so to speak even if there
are embryos they cannot attach to the
uterus and she cannot develop the
gestation so there is good news is here
or whether something can be attempted to
fix the problem and in fact it was
described in this paper I showed you
before you see here they were talking
about projecting treatment for
infertility in bitches who shot into our
stress interval and they used industries
in this in this study they used a drug
called magistral acetate which is what
we call a progestogen a molecule that
acts like progesterone and in fact we
use that because at the very beginning
of the cycle it will inhibit the
development of the ovarian follicles
understand that is going to stop is
going to stop the season anemia paper
they use these protocols in ten bitches
suffering from this problem and then
they bred those ten bitches and guess
what ten which is ten of those ten out
of ten were pregnant so the goal here is
super simple you stop the season at the
very beginning so that it’ll you alone
more time for the uterus to regenerate
and unfortunately when we use this
protocol we need to use it at the right
time we shouldn’t use it too late in the
season of the witch because then there’s
the risk to induce potentially a
pyometra
so it’s very important to really really
use what respect all the different steps
of the protocol so in the case of Tanya
she was already too far advanced in our
season we couldn’t do that we couldn’t
use it at that moment so you know what
we decided to wait we decided to wait
for the next season which apparently
might come in the next three months
which was the case she was in season
three month after the beginning of this
season and when she had this new season
when we did the major solicitor to
acetate treatment the season stopped and
she was bred at the following season
again
she had a signing of a relation
she went to Germany to for a single
one-shot breeding and guess what she
adds puppy happy handling but if we had
bred herb first time I saw her that
probably wouldn’t have been decay
because again of this shop under stress
syndrome and this shop under stress
syndrome is something I have mainly seen
actually man see I’ve only seen it in
German Shepherd dogs and that’s why I
believe this is something good for you
guys to remember because you are
definitely in a breed that is
predisposed for this let’s now move to
our second clinical case and this time
we’ll speak about angel the story of
angel the 3.5 year old German Shepherd
bitch I saw in consultation in Paris
again a long time ago and she was this
time we fell to us for infertility so
you see when I first discussed this
clinical case with the owner this is
what he told me he told me that angel
add regular season she was in season
roughly every five to six months which
is kind of the norm she was bred at all
a season and she was read on German in
Germany on day 12 of her season the mail
that they use was proven to be futile
yet successfully breed bitches before
and after this breeding they did a
pregnancy diagnosis by abdominal
palpation the thought she was pregnant
but not appease web delivered after that
and when they came to see us at the vet
school in Paris she had started off
season roughly a week ago so when I saw
her in consultation I could also see
that you know she was in optimal body
condition and I want to reiterate that
this is something super important when
it comes to breeding again some people
tend to forget that but we want the
bitches before they are bred when we
breed them we want them to be in optimal
body condition because fat tissue is not
only for energy storage it also produces
hormones that can interfere with the
normal development of
the normal also with the normal hormonal
control of the reproductive function and
I was confused because I was looking for
this blood but I wanted to share with
you on the chat but to explain you guys
more about what I mean here but optimal
body condition is really key and that
should be your priority you want the veg
to be optimal body condition before
breeding her she was okay she was in
super super good else absolutely nothing
abnormal from what I could see here so
you see this is our history she was
infertile what should we start with here
should we do progesterone test should we
think of an intrauterine insemination
should we do a Brucella canis test with
the top of canine brucellosis or should
we check for hypothyroidism what do you
think what should we do here what should
we start with
you
five four three two one
okay let’s see what you guys answered so
everything nearly fifty people well 40%
of you mentioned we should check for
hypothyroidism and you know what’s kind
of interesting because this is something
I hear very often all the bitches
infertile we need to check out
hypothyroidism one thing I can tell you
and we have studies to back this up and
I might have a blog but I need to look
for it but I’m not going to do that
right now but one thing I can tell you
for sure when a bitch or male dog is
suffering from hypothyroidism the first
reason why you will go to see a
veterinarian is not infertility you will
have other clinical symptoms you will
ask maybe skin issues or overweight in
the beach because she keeps getting on
and getting we’re putting on weight but
it will not be infertility infertility
can be caused by hypothyroidism but
usually doesn’t come along it it comes
with all the other clinical symptoms if
the only symptom is infertility studies
tell us and I’ve seen this at the vet
school it’s usually not it has nothing
to do with i populism and it’s very
often overestimated because in large
dogs we have lower levels of thyroid
hormones so very easy to miss interpret
the results your but remember well
remember look at the history here you
see previous age she was bred in Germany
on day 12 so she was born on day 12 so
that’s why I would definitely suggest
here to start with project one test for
timing of ovulation and next season we
already mentioned it a little bit
earlier but this is the best way to
determine the day of ovulation and
I keep mentioning you know in my lecture
that you guys work with animals that are
very unique in the field in the field of
animal repro bitches produce
progesterone before ovulation it’s not
nelly the only species where we can use
progesterone to detect the day of
ovulation because it’s produced before
it and they will oscillate outside eggs
that are not yet mature they will become
mature to four days sometimes five days
after ovulation which is super
convenient for you guys because it means
that you don’t when they are populated
you add time to drive to where the male
leaves you have time to call your
friends so that they can ship clothes
and semen or shows and maybe not that
she’ll semen to your place so it makes
it much easier for you to schedule all
the different events those are very
unique features of canine repo and that
being said they are unique but in many
many very whole text books and to be
fair on many many Facebook forums – you
will read that people recommend to greet
the bitches between 12 to 15 days after
the beginning of the season because this
is when they are ready this is what
people keep telling me they are always
ready between 1215 days you know what
guys we know better today we know that
bitches can ovulate earlier or later and
that’s the reason why well you see this
this is not always correct that’s the
reason why miss timing of the day of
breeding is the most common cause of
infertility in canines because basically
to see is very simple sperm cells cannot
meet the eggs and basically November
your not pregnancy but true for voltages
but it’s even more true of the truth we
say more to a truer but you guys can
correct me on the chat it’s even more
true or truer in German Shepherd dogs
because of this okay I know it’s written
in French but guess what Canada is a
bilingual country guys so it’s time to
brush up your French I’m just kidding
I’m going to translate this but this is
a study we did in 2006 at the vet school
of Paris and basically we studied the
play ovulatory period in the German
Shepherd itch and again this was a bit
we were seeing a lot in consumer type of
w we’re seeing a lot in consultation and
of dogs German Shepherds are known to
have what we call long pro illustris so
pro estrus is the first phase of the
season and it’s definition is mainly
behavioral you know and it means the
bitch is in season but she does not
accept mating very behavior oriented
definition because in real life I’m sure
you have seen which is exciting we be
accepting being read any time during the
season right but what is interesting is
that in this study that we did at the
vet school it showed us that in fact 30%
protein one bitch out of three which is
kind of huge 30% of German Shepherd
bitches will ovulate between day 16 and
25 after the beginning of their season I
have even seen some of them oscillating
more than 50 days after the beginning of
their filaments in which she ovulating
on day 40 she would she was bred on day
32 and she had 12 apiece
so you see which German Shepherd bitches
are known to ovulate later in their
cycle and let’s take Angela scale let’s
imagine that she had ovulated on day 20
of your season which again is really not
uncommon in German shepherds that means
that the optimal fertility window would
be between data 22 and with day 24
because again the other sites will
become mature choose days and we stay
mature two to four days after ovulation
she was bred on day 12 so on day 12 well
what we know is that the half-life of
the scrum is basically two to four days
so which means that we would still have
sperm around until day 16 after the
beginning of their season and she
related on day 20 should have been ready
day 22 day 24 so you see by day 16
clearly
would be nothing less basic maths the
sperm cells here might not have been
able to fertilize the eggs in this
scenario which again is highly probable
here because it’s a German Shepherd dish
that was sired that was bred day 12
after the beginning of the season so it
varies a lot but in German shepherds we
know for sure they have this long
foresters that is very specific to the
breed so what else would you recommend
here that so we are agreed we need to do
a timing of relation we need to do
progesterone test what else should we do
should we do an intrauterine
insemination should we do a Brucella
canis test as for canine brucellosis
should we do ultrasound prior to
breeding should we check for
hypothyroidism
I will give you my take on that one so
but what do you think what should we
recommend here
you
five four three two one
okay that’s kind of interesting most of
you went for intrauterine insemination
and well one thing I wanted to mention
first you see the brutal I can attest
canine brucellosis that’s always
something I would always recommend in
any case of infertility which is
infertile male dog is infertile we want
to check cocaine and brucellosis because
this is a very severe infectious disease
that can impact fertility essentially in
canines and you really want to rule this
one out
especially today we have reports of
canine brucellosis outbreaks in certain
countries in certain states so we want
always we always want to rule this one
out always that’s the priority that’s
the first thing even if it’s not very
common fortunately we want to rule it
out but clearly one of the thing I would
consider here would be an intrauterine
insemination
you see that is a beautiful cervix of
the beach and basically the cervix is
this structure that separates the vagina
and the uterus so the sperm cells had to
go through this to get inside the uterus
and here it’s like they have arrows
pointing telling you the entrance is
right here this is a beautiful picture
of the cervix no doubt about that and
this one this picture was taken on an
English Bulldog but to be fair we are
very similar cervix in in German
shepherds and we would like I would like
to perform what we call TCI transfer
tickle insemination and intrauterine
insemination so that I can pass the
catheter through the cervix and deputies
the semen inside the uterus I would like
to do that for two thing because first
it would allow me to check the quality
of the semen of the male at the time of
breeding because the fertility of the
male the poor semen quality is the
second cause of infertility in canines
and well if I can I would always prefer
to check it but don’t you worry more
about this in the next clinical case we
are going to discuss any of us human is
a good quality again I like to make sure
I can deposit the semen inside the
uterus
I want to bypass the vagina so that it
increased it will maximize the number of
sperm cells that can reach the outside
and the other reason is you see the
vagina of the bitch is extremely long
the end because of the blood that is
produced during the season well some of
the blood can accumulate and sometimes
macerate which is a perfect medium for
bacterial growth and that’s why large
which is German Shepherd which is
included are more predisposed to vaginal
infection during the season however you
know this is a German Shepherd bitch we
are talking about here so in Europe as I
told you AI is not something that is
usually done they go from natural
breeding most of the time because that’s
what is considered the gold standard in
this breed so I offered this to the
owner of Angel and he told me no no no
way I want there to be bred in Germany
so we won’t do an artificial
insemination
we couldn’t do an artificial
insemination we wouldn’t we couldn’t do
it with TCI on Angel but at least I
would always recommend to check if the
bitch is not developing a vaginal
infection during the season because of
what we just did without the length of
the vagina et cetera I have a question
for you guys what do you think is the
best way to check if Angel is developing
eventually the bacterial infection is
the general infection what’s the best
way to check
she’s developing a bacterial infection
should we do a blood culture through the
vagina smear SH with the vaginal culture
should we do the genuine endoscopy
what’s the best way according to you to
check if she’s developing
the general infection here
you
five four three two one let’s take a
look at the result ah that’s very very
interesting guys eighty-seven point five
percent of you are telling me that we
should do the general culture so we
should do a bacteriology to check in
they are bacteria growing in the vagina
really interesting you know you see when
I saw Tonya Tonya in consultation before
we started doing the timing of the
relation we will always do a clinical
exam and when I perform clinical exam in
greeting bitches I always check
obviously the vulva to check it out
there’s no abnormal to join or discharge
so I know this is a very old picture
it’s kind of blurry but in 2005 guys we
didn’t have iPhone at that time but here
it was no covenant without discharge the
discharge coming out of the vulva was
normal normal imaging discharge I would
expect during the season of the beach so
we did a vagina Slayer because the Jango
smear is a very important tool we use
when we do timing a lot relation but we
also use it to check what’s inside the
vagina so you see those complex like
cells they are telling you that the
bitch is in what we call Easter’s which
means that is very it means very high
secretion of estrogens but it means that
we are getting close to the ovulation
the interesting part is both kind of
vaginas meals you can see them from ten
days before ovulation to ten days after
ovulation but anyway what we are looking
for in those vagina smears we are
looking for something we call neutral
files which are cells that are not gross
of inflammation that will tell us that
they have something wrong going on and
probably an infection in the vagina of
the witch but here there is absolutely
no neutral pipes this is totally normal
we just see qualified vagina cells which
are those cells here absolutely no sign
of inflammation and infection and
because I was super lucky when I was at
the bed school I had access to endoscopy
so I did a vaginal exploration and those
complete the small camera that I can put
in the vagina of the bitch and I can
either look at the vagina on bukoza and
this is what I see and look
it’s pink it’s clean is simply beautiful
really beautiful here so here in turn in
angel cake there is absolutely no sign
of infection absolutely no sign of
infection so you see if I have done the
bacterial culture this is what I might
prove the other thing I might have found
we coli in heavy growth I might have
found streptococcus G in AV growth I
might have found another bacteria called
Pasteurella me to zero in every growth
and I could tell I can tell you
something that would have been very very
confusing because I would have found the
bacteria growing in the vagina but
you’ve seen the pictures everything was
everything looked absolutely normal to
bacteria bacterial to general cultures
is something you know people often use
when dealing with infertility any don’t
get me wrong it can be an interesting
tool but it is an interesting tool only
when it is associated with clinical
science and this is a publication that
was a paper that was published in 2016 I
guess but here it tells us that the
general bacterial flora increases which
is rollin through tivity and I want to
put them here antibiotic treatment
before mating on the basis of positive
culture yet in the absence of clinical
science seems to be unnecessary so I’m
just raising a warning here you know
that today antibiotic resistance is on
everyone lips I keep repeating that
during my webinars I think but if you do
a bacterial culture in a breeding bitch
I can guarantee you one thing it will
always come up positive we did that for
five years until we got access to
endoscopy and we realize that everything
was normal we will always find something
we might find those three germs I
mentioned Rico lice Cryptococcus G
Patrignano Sauceda in AV growth in a
normal pagina
with no infection at all remember that
the test is always only as good as its
as its interpretation so beware because
here positive doesn’t mean infection and
it certainly does not mean that the
bitch needs to be treated with
antibiotics which turns out to be in
fact way too often the the go-to
solution in those situation so you see
in the case of Tonya everything was
normal we did a timing of ovulation as
we said because we have some doubts
about the way she was bred when she was
bred the first time we did the timing of
ovulation we determine when she was
supposed to be bred and she went to
Germany to be bred with AB I thought
I’ll nail
so okay breathing okay what do we do
next we wait and cross fingers should we
schedule a blood test the week later
should we schedule an intra sound in
three weeks should we schedule an x-ray
in seven weeks what should we do next
after the breathing should we just wait
and see what should we do here what
would you do because again remember this
bitch add a history of infertility
five four three two one
okay so I see that most of you guys
share my love for ultrasounds that’s
great well you see one thing that caught
my attention in ten years case was this
farm right here in Kenya sorry this one
is angel it’s not Kenya we already
talked about tanning it’s this part here
this is a pregnancy diagnosis by
abdominal palpation and okay abdominal
partition is not the best way to confirm
that the bitch is pregnant I myself and
my share of failures with this however I
knew angels breeder was quite good at
this using this for more than 13 years
and you know usually when he was coming
to see me at the vet school and you were
telling me hoon I think she’s pregnant
he was really wrong and it is definitely
possible that angel was pregnant and
dealt with what we call embryonic
resorption so the question I get quite
often is c’mon doc how come this went to
notice if she was pregnant and she lost
the puppies there should have been some
sort of clinical side mimicking an
abortion here they didn’t see anything
they thought she was pregnant and there
was no puppies so here’s an important
rule you guys need to remember to
certify their rule in dogs any pregnancy
arrest that occurs before 35 days of
gestation will go totally unnoticed
because the embryos will basically will
be literally digested by the uterus so
to speak so in an infertility k it says
it therefore means that you must do an
early pregnancy diagnosis with the
conventional machine this is something
we can easily do especially no
showmanship a bitch around three four
weeks after breeding and this is what we
did in angel we did an early pregnancy
diagnosis by ultrasound and this is what
we saw look here there’s even an arrow
pointing to this thing here that might
be too hot for the puppy probably
ditching when you see that this means
congratulations you succeeded there are
puppies we didn’t see anything
like that you see this is an embryonic
resorption this is an embryo but there’s
nothing inside the it’s totally empty so
we know that something started but it
couldn’t go through it didn’t fully
develop and here’s another picture for
them Briana quiz option we didn’t see
that in angel cake in angels case we
didn’t see any pictures of embryonic
resorption
we only saw pictures of embryos we were
super happy you know everything looked
okay she had puppies so the owner was
happy he was I can tell you who’s not
bouncing up and down in in the
ultrasound room but again the story
doesn’t end here
the story so is Odin Elia because
remember Henschel history the breeder
thought she was pregnant but she didn’t
deliver anything everything looks normal
in dirt you sure sound but because of
the history and also because of the fact
that angel is a German Shepherd bitch we
also did raw blood to save it again we
are said progesterone we did a
progesterone set at the time of the
pregnancy diagnosis because one thing I
know and one thing I want you to know
about German Shepherd bitches
this is verb breed in which we most
often diagnose something we call new
tails failure and this one is very very
important for you guys to remember and
by the way retail failure tell me what
is this no idea uterine disorder and
volume these other infectious disease
what is luteal failure a problem we see
quite often well quite often that is
most often reported in German shepherds
and in fact we also call it a little
insufficiency what is that no idea
uterine disorder and volume these other
infectious disease
five four three two one
so okay most of you enter a user user
means disorder uterine disorders are
quite common and definitely a very
important cause of infertility in
witches but you see gluteal failure is
not a uterine disorder little failure is
in fact is in fact it corresponds to the
lack or no progesterone equation by the
cocktail area which you get are those
structures on the ovaries after a during
gestation no progesterone to in
gestation or not enough of it means one
thing nope gestation because gestation
can only be maintained with the presence
of progesterone if you don’t have
protector on you as no gestation and
retail failure means that the ovaries
for the reason we don’t clearly
understand today are no more producing
cholesterol or are not producing enough
progesterone so we did this with draw
blood in angel and this is what we found
so three weeks after ovulation she was
at fourteen nanogram to an ml or if you
guys used an immortality she was around
45 nanometer so one thing I can tell you
three weeks after ovulation
I expect this number here to be much
much much higher so the good thing on
the good side she is pregnant but if
this level of progesterone keeps
decreasing she might not carry the
pregnancy to term and some studies that
have been done by our colleagues in
Germany have shown that 25% of German
Shepherd dogs of German Shepherd bitches
suffering from infertility of
progesterone levels that are lower than
the bitches that have normal fertility
so in k9 again luteal failure is
essentially described in this breed and
in cases like angel when we deal with
history of infertility the fact that
she’s pregnant but we’ve low
progesterone level at the time of the
ultrasound this is typically when we
will suspect this problem and the good
news is that well they are alternatives
that are available we can simply meant
the ditch there are many called
protocols that are based on the use of
micronized progesterone or projected yet
again progesterone analogues that we can
give the bitch and can help them
maintain our gestation to term because
those will mimic and increase in the
progesterone level in the blood of the
beach and help maintain the gestation so
until the bitch gives off a monitoring
will be put in place to make sure that
the supplementation does not need to be
adjusted and that’s why what we did in
Angela’s case we simplemente down during
gestation and we stopped a few days
before the expected is the expected
population day she had not been pregnant
before remember this time she did carry
a pregnancy to term and she delivered
beautiful puppies and her owner was
super happy
so again fortunately renal failure is
not something common in canines in
canine repro however if there is one
weight you must know about this disorder
it’s definitely in German Shepherds
because again this is the breed with
where it is the most frequently reported
and the last clinical case I want to
discuss with you is about a four year
old male dog named Jango
so you see Jango was considered to be an
elite on a great subject for his owner a
very valuable breeding subject for his
genetic selection program but there was
a Weber a kind of a problem you see
Jango as mated 25 bitches so far 25 and
on those 25 none of them were pregnant
not a single one so you know how this
goes obviously rumors were spreading and
people were saying all these don’t get a
problem you might not be such a good
reading subject so you’re not consulted
with first thing to do according to you
when we deal with an infant I’ll meld
male dog what is the first thing we
should do when we have an infantile
milder what’s the first thing we should
do to approach the situation we should
perform the castration or just answer
the genital tract collect and evaluate
the semen or test for hypothyroidism
five four three two one and I see that
we all agree we need to collect the
semen and evaluate the semen
this is reprove 101 guys when dealing
with infertility in male dog the first
thing that needs to be done is to check
the quality of the semen and there are
three important parameters we want to
monitor and evaluate here we want to
check the motility the number of sperm
that are moving the numeration the
number of sperm in the ejaculate and the
percentage of abnormal form the
percentage of sperm cells that are
abnormal but those are the three
essential criteria we want to focus on
when we check the when we do a semen
analysis okay nice and motility is
always again something you want to check
I totally hear people telling me well
Doug we’ve collected the semen and it
was very wide you see it was like this
with super wide so this is good semen
qualities must be good quality because
it’s super wide let me tell you
something it can be that wide and
everything can be dead inside and no
sperm cell moving so you must check the
semen under microscope especially when
there’s a history of infertility that’s
the only way to make sure it is okay or
not but motility is not enough sure you
want to make sure that you see at least
70 80 percent of sperm cells that are
moving but you also want to check two
other power natures I mentioned and what
about the enumeration tell me how many
store methods are often in average in
the male chamionship and ejaculate so I
know that’s a very very important data
for you guys to know you will be able to
brag about this when you will see other
colleagues breeding other kind of dogs
but again I think it’s good for you to
have an idea of how many tomatoes what
we will find in a German Shepherd in
chocolate is it 100,000 is it one to
five million 200 to 400 million or 800
million to one thousand million one
video sperm in the ejaculate
how many sperm cells do we have in
average in a male German Shepherd dog
five four three two one
Oh Oh it’s kind of interesting we had a
tie and all okay so most of you answered
one to five million so you see if we
have a man German Shepherd dog with one
to five million scum cell you need to
ejaculate now we say that this male dog
is suffering from a severe illegals
Australia which basically means they are
not enough sperm in its ejaculate the
normal German Shepherd male dog will
ejaculate between 800 million to 1
billion sperm cell in its ejaculate
that’s the norm that’s what you expect
to see in a German Shepherd ejaculate
that’s not like a lot right but that
against totally normal because in size
it is its importance we need at least
150 million motile sperm to fertilize
the bitch we need to have those 150
million sperm cell getting inside the
uterus and because the vagina is so long
there will be lots of sperm cells that
will be lost and that will never reach
the outside and that will never make it
into the future so that’s why you have
so many term cell in the ejaculate of a
German Shepherd dog and don’t you worry
this evaluation can be done pretty fast
because in fact when you are used to
check dog semen
now you just give it a quick look under
the microscope and it will immediately
tell you if the numeration is okay or
not because you will have a good sense
or if it’s you have enough sperm cell or
if they have not enough of it because
you always want to be above 150 million
sperm cell in the ejaculate the last
parameter which is super important to
verify is what we call abnormal forms
and this is one of the outer most
important I believe because it must be
observed even if sperm cells are moving
well and there are enough of them
because sometimes people just evaluate
those two parameters motility
enumeration but they don’t go can be
abnormal drops is there are more than
fifty to forty to fifty percent of sperm
cells that are defective facility might
be impaired and some strong defect there
are kind of obvious like those ones for
instance you see this one it’s a
decapitate take a peek your take a
figure
any separation story behavior sperm cell
I guess we could say this one is what we
call a cold tail so basically just
turning around itself so it’s not able
to move straight forward to reach the
outside and this one has to egg when
they have to as one egg is putting in
one direction the other head is putting
in another direction so they are just
again we have this weird movement but
they are not able to go and reach the
eggs so those are very easy abnormality
to detect and they’re kind of obvious
but they’re only ones that sometimes are
are very easily missed this one is
specially called proximal cytoplasmic
droplet so you see I’m going to do a
quick drawing here but a sperm cell in
dogs look like that and the proximal
cytoplasmic droplet is basically a wrong
shaped structure that will appear right
here right behind the head so this is a
marker of what we call testicular
degeneration just that the particular
tissue is aging and this would in fact
decrease the motility of the edge so if
you just move quickly at the sperm cell
you will have lots of them they might
they might have a good motility pattern
but because of the presence of this
droplet the the head of those chemicals
are not moving properly and those sperm
cells we might be able to get to the
other side to get to the egg but they
might not be able to penetrate the zona
pellucida which is surrounding the eggs
and therefore they might not be able to
fertilize the eggs and in some all the
dogs it’s not uncommon to see that they
are good motility good liberation but
90% of sperm cells with a proximal
droplet and that means definitely impair
the fragility potential of the animal
definitely against something very
important to check so you say we we saw
Django and we collect the Django which
honestly wasn’t too difficult it was
quite happy about it to tell you the
truth however there was something weird
you see we collected him and this is
what the collection looks like so tell
me guys on the chat what do you think of
that this is what we collect
from Django this is the ejaculate of
Django
what do you think of that tell me on the
chest what does it look like that season
Jacqueline tell me on the chest what do
you think about
somebody’s telling it’s very dense some
police telling me it’s kind of a weird
color somebody is telling me or there’s
a discoloration
okay you would expect human to be white
or at least show the prosthetic face it
will be translated the kick of the color
here so you see guys this ejaculate was
greenish it was married in fact it was
kind of gross because this this is touch
if this is what Django was ejaculating
abon ejaculating since the beginning of
his brilliant career before that my
definitely explained the fertility issue
because this is past its first in the
ejaculate it’s what we call by Australia
what is the next step here castration
x-ray you analyzes ultrasound what is
the next step in general with
ejaculating pus that we just highlighted
what should we do here
you
you
five four three two one
so 57% of you are going for ultrasounds
and you know what we will indeed do any
ultrasound we would check the prostate
which is the only accessory gland of the
genital tract in male dogs because 90%
of the volume of the ejaculate comes
from the prostate and you see in Django
scape this is what we saw so I again it
must look like different shades of grey
for you but you see this is the prostate
right here beautiful but there is
something weird on this prostate this
thing here this big black ball it
shouldn’t be there this is totally
abnormal we shouldn’t see that and you
see when we saw that we punctured it
because we wanted to know what was
inside we are quite a good idea of what
we would find but this is what we
punctured from Django’s prostate this
again is cus look at look at the amount
of pus we were able to remove from this
prostate lots of course Django was
suffering from a poor static abscess and
you know something might not sound right
here because he has a big abscess on the
prostate and abscess means first and
this is the consequence of a bacterial
infection but this dog is doing
perfectly well he is in perfectly good
health he wasn’t brought to us because
it was without wrinkle because he had
fever or because you had difficulties to
urinate or you had any urinary issues he
was brought to us for fertility issues
he was in perfect health and that is
something you might typically observe in
breeding dogs
you see if we had if he had not explore
and find out that you were suffering
from prostatic abscess we might have
developed those clinical signs you might
have developed the fever the lethargy
etcetera all the time but because it was
a breeding dog and it was detected
earlier the we could detect it earlier
because it was a bringing dog and
because it was into town processing
disorder they are quite common in dogs
in fact 80% of dogs more than 8 years of
age will develop some kind of prosthetic
eyes
Lygia which is kind of the natural
phenomenon that being said I said $80
80% of those over 8 years of age well we
can find them sometimes index less than
two years of age too so there’s a wide
range when it comes to development of
the prosthetic issues the modern
prostatic hyperplasia is what we will
usually find more often but this
prostatic hyperplasia can eventually
lead to complicate lead to complication
for that exist prostatic infections or
prosthetic abscess and processing
disorder are quite common especially in
large dogs and there is one breed which
is often mentioned and this breed again
in German shepherds and this is what we
pointed out in this study we did back in
2011 so if we go back to general yes is
suffering from the prostatic upset what
about is reading career tell me on the
child yes no is it order or not
can we still consider breeding him in
the future do you think what do you
think about in breeding career is it
over up look tell me on the chest
some Emily is telling me I think he has
a future she hasn’t seen the
presentation yet gap not over not over
not over so we all agree his breeding
career is another of course if it was
although I won’t be able to finish my
story right one essential element of
prosthetic disorders is a hormonal
component the secretion of testosterone
so the best way to remove this the best
way to remove this assailants equation
would be to castrate the dog but this is
a valuable breeding though we are
talking about so there must be something
else that can be done and in fact we
have medical protocols today that can
help us remove the effect of
testosterone on the prostate while at
the same time not impairing fertility
those many controls of course will lead
to a decrease in the size of the
prostate which is what is needed in fact
to for the prostate to be cure so to
speak and in Django’s case might not be
enough because here is suffering from
the prostatic abscess there is a
bacterial infection going on as well
antibiotics will be required you see in
those in this plus root puncture we
culture of E coli so we this is
something we might find in the vagina of
the bitch but this is definitely
abnormal inside the prostate and we will
need to give him antibiotics and we will
need to cure the abscess we will need to
truly abscess
so this can be done by surgery or this
can also be done by ultrasound guided
aspiration which is what we did in his
case because we are the fantastic
radiologist who really was very good at
puncturing those cavities so we were
able to treat it and inject directly
inside the util inside the body upset
antibiotics to cure it faster when we
had fantastic results in Jango scale and
we did a study when I was at the vet
school where we studied in fact
fertility in the email that suffering
from prostatic disorders and when we
were able to identify prostatic disorder
and treat them we were able to restore
fertility in nearly 60% of the cases so
infertility in male dogs is always of
bad prognosis but if we can find out
what’s going on and if we have the
appropriate medical treatment you
see that we can see activity can still
be recovered in to 60% of the case which
is already good success rate in my
opinion
you
so you see we did the treatment and
Django was to be reassessed few months
after no need to do it earlier because
in dogs the scrum cycle lasts around 60
days so any time a dog is thick there is
no point controlling the steamin until
two months after the end of the medical
treatment this is only when you will get
infected clear you will reach a clear
conclusion so a few months after I saw
Django again collected the semen and
guess what it was perfect could not see
DT good enumeration less than 20% of
normal abnormal forms perfect perfectly
adequate semen which was totally
compatible with fertility so again
protecting these daughters are very
common in large dogs but there is over a
clear predator edition of general for
German shepherds to develop this problem
even early during their lifetime you
definitely need to have an idea of what
this is about because this is something
again you might run into in this grid
for sure I’m quite sure about that and
we reach the end
just covered three clinical cases and
you see Tonya and Joel Jango they all
displayed some typical problems we
encounter especially in German Shepherd
dogs and it’s like in all canine breeds
you know they all have their
predispositions to this and to that but
one of my favorites a an investment in
knowledge always pays the best interest
you see tonight you learned about some
of those issues today and how we solve
them now I hope that you’ll be better
prepare if you ever have to face them
and that’s what I wanted to tell you
tonight guys so thank you very much for
participating to this webinar today it’s
always a pleasure to spend some time
with you guys online so I’m not going to
stop the recording but hey don’t leave
us now because it’s central question is
time for Q&A so if you have questions it
is now or never so turn them to the chat
and we will answer as many as we can
so please fire em up I am ready for that
and again if you need to go really want
to thank you for participating always a
pleasure
I recognize a few names here hello to my
friends from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia
always a pleasure to see you guys here I
get it morning for you but thank you
very much always a pleasure and thanks
for all this interactivity and
engagement online always a pleasure to
do those webinar thank you guys and if
you have questions put them on the chat
