Female don`t want to mate? - Page 3

Possible split heat cycle. bleed, stop and bleed again. One of my females would do this every heat cycle. she would come in bleed for 7 days- stop for 7 days and start again and bleed good and swell a lot more would breed on her own somewhere in that time and always whelped pups. was a very good mother. She was the first Shepherd I ever had that did that. really messed with my head.
I have recently had a female that always had a normal 8 month cycle that had a split heat last time around, she came in started bleeding for 5 days and stopped, nothing for a month, then came back in and bred natural on 11 & 13 days heat  & whelped 7 pups.

Moons is right, NORMALLY 17 days is usually to late, but it does happen. Seldom did I ever get pups even when female was standing/mating on those days. I now have an exception to that, missing a female, she was flagging standing, bred her on days 12,13 &14, no pups, took to vet for progesterone test last time-showed she is ready around days 16-18. so we'll see if we get anything this time around.

Huntered, your best bet is for you to get her progesterone tests done when she comes in heat next time to see when she is fertile and go from there if you are really wanting a litter, or just keep her for a great pet and don't try or worry about breeding her.

Breeding dogs can be much more complex than some people think.. The longer you do it the more problems you discover.
 

Every female is different. Some are ready at day 7 some at day 21 or later. We run vaginal slides on our dogs to know when the dog is in true estrus to show us these facts. Most dogs do have a pattern and when this is known breeding is much easier.  Some females are not easy to breed some dislike certain males and are fine with others. I would suggest a vaginal slide on her every other day just to see where she is at.

What Bandersen said. Has anyone tried those vaginal test strips that are suppose to turn to a purplish color when a female is ready?