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Heat Cycles & Breeding Records

Video walkthrough: Watch on Loom (link coming soon)
Every female’s heat history, progesterone tests, and breedings live on her own profile under the Heat Cycles tab. Tracking cycles here unlocks fertile window predictions, next-heat estimates, and the Litter Planner timeline.

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What You Can Do Here

  • Record each heat cycle with its start date and fertile window
  • See an estimated date for her next heat, based on her own cycle history
  • Log progesterone tests and watch the rise toward ovulation on a chart
  • Record breedings — natural ties, TCI, and fresh, frozen, or surgical AI
  • Update the fertile window and due date automatically from ovulation timing
  • Turn a breeding into a litter (with the due date worked out for you) and set a pregnancy check reminder
  • Track the dam’s temperature before whelping on the Whelping Watch tab
  • Stop heat projections for retired or spayed girls

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How It Works

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Recording a Heat Cycle

Before you start: the Heat Cycles tab only appears on profiles where Sex is set to Female and Type is not Puppy. If you don’t see the tab on a girl’s profile, open her Details tab, click edit, and check those two fields — a young female still marked as a Puppy won’t show it.
  1. Go to Dogs in the left menu and click the female to open her profile.
  2. Click the Heat Cycles tab (in the Care & Evaluation group on the side).
  3. Click Add Heat Cycle at the top (or Add First Heat Cycle if this is her first). The Add New Heat Cycle window opens.
  4. Enter the Start Date — the day the heat began.
  5. Adjust the Fertile Window Start Offset (days) and Fertile Window End Offset (days) if needed. These default to 9 and 14 days after the start date, which is typical for most breeds.
  6. Add any Notes and click Save. The cycle now appears in her list.
Once a cycle is saved, the tab shows her Last Recorded Heat Cycle and an Estimated Next Heat Cycle. The more cycles you log, the more accurate that estimate becomes. BreederBuddy looks at the gaps between her past heats and uses her typical gap (the middle one, so a single unusually long or short gap, or a mistyped date, doesn’t throw it off). With only one cycle on file, it assumes about 180 days.

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Heat Cycles and Fertile Windows on Your Calendar

Every recorded heat cycle puts a bar on your calendar, and so does its fertile window. Upcoming cycles you have not recorded yet show as estimated heat cycles and estimated fertile windows, projected from her own history, including her own fertile window offsets if you have been adjusting them. To hide any of them, untick it under Show on calendar in the panel on the left of the calendar (on a phone, tap Filters): Heat Cycles, Est. Heat Cycles, Fertile Windows, and Est. Fertile Windows are listed under Breeding. Fertile windows are read-only on the calendar because they belong to the cycle they came from. To change the dates, edit the heat cycle on her Heat Cycles tab and the calendar follows. They also flow into the calendar feed you subscribe to from your phone or Google Calendar.

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Logging Progesterone Tests

Progesterone tests attach to a specific heat cycle:
  1. On the Heat Cycles tab, find the cycle and click Cycle Activity — Progesterone & Breedings to expand it.
  2. Click Log Progesterone Test.
  3. Enter the Test Date (the day the blood was drawn), the Progesterone (ng/mL) value, and optionally the Vet / Lab and notes.
As you add tests, BreederBuddy charts the Progesterone Rise with reference lines for the LH surge (around 2–3 ng/mL) and ovulation (around 5 ng/mL). If a reading comes back below the ovulation threshold, BreederBuddy offers to put a retest reminder on your calendar. When a test crosses 5 ng/mL, the Ovulation Timing panel appears with recommended breeding windows:
  • Natural / fresh AI — ovulation +2–3 days
  • Frozen / surgical AI — ovulation +3–4 days
Click Apply to fertile window to update the cycle’s fertile window from the actual ovulation date, and BreederBuddy also shows a refined due date (ovulation + 63 days). Progesterone testing is shown for dog programs — cattery accounts won’t see this section, since progesterone timing isn’t used the same way for queens.

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Recording a Breeding (Ties & AI)

  1. Expand Cycle Activity — Progesterone & Breedings on the heat cycle.
  2. Click Log Breeding.
  3. Enter the Breeding Date — the date of the tie or insemination.
  4. Pick the Breeding Method: Natural tie, TCI (Transcervical Insemination), AI - Fresh/Chilled, AI - Frozen, or AI - Surgical.
  5. Under Sire Used, click Select a Sire and pick him from your dogs. If he isn’t one of your dogs, look under Outside sires already in your pedigrees in the same window and click Use. If he’s not there either, click Add a new outside sire, type his name, and click Add sire.
  6. Save. BreederBuddy also creates a matching breeding record on the sire’s Health tab if he’s in your system.

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After You Log a Breeding: Litter and Reminders

Right after you save a breeding, BreederBuddy asks What’s next for this breeding? You can pick any of these:
  • Create the litter — opens a new litter with the parents and breeding date already filled in. This is what marks her as pregnant on the Litter Planner and her Whelping Watch tab, and it sets her estimated due date.
  • Create pregnancy check reminder — puts a pregnancy check on your calendar a set number of Days after breeding (28 by default; change the number first if you like).
  • Tentative due date only — adds an unconfirmed due-date marker to your calendar. You don’t need it if you create the litter.
If you skip the litter now, that’s fine. When you later mark the pregnancy check reminder complete, BreederBuddy offers to Create Litter From Breeding if that breeding doesn’t have a litter yet. Breedings are saved as health records, so they appear both under Breedings This Cycle on the heat cycle and on the girl’s Health tab. If you log a breeding from the Health tab instead, it links to the current heat cycle automatically when the date falls inside that cycle’s window. Details like tie times or progesterone values at breeding fit nicely in the notes field.

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Whelping Watch (Temperature Tracking)

Once she’s bred, the Whelping Watch tab (called Queening Watch for catteries) on her profile is where you log her temperature as the due date approaches. Click Add Reading to record each temperature — BreederBuddy charts the readings so you can spot the drop that signals labor is close.

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Stopping Heat Projections for Retired or Spayed Girls

The Litter Planner timeline only shows females whose Type is Active Breeding Dog — and it excludes anyone whose Fertility is set to Spayed / Neutered. So when a girl is done breeding:
  1. Open her profile and go to the Details tab.
  2. Click edit.
  3. Change her Type to Retired (this removes her from the Litter Planner and from Buddy’s upcoming-heat predictions).
  4. If she’s been spayed, also set Fertility to Spayed / Neutered.
  5. Save.
Her heat cycle history stays on her profile — nothing is deleted — but she no longer appears in projections.

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Key Terms

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Tips & Common Questions

The Heat Cycles tab only shows on females who aren’t marked as puppies. Open her Details tab, click edit, and confirm Sex is Female and Type is set to something other than Puppy — for a breeding girl, that’s Active Breeding Dog. Once you save, the Heat Cycles tab appears in the Care & Evaluation group of her profile.
All three live on the heat cycle. Open her Heat Cycles tab, expand Cycle Activity — Progesterone & Breedings on the cycle, then use Log Progesterone Test for blood results and Log Breeding for ties and inseminations — the Breeding Method dropdown covers natural ties, TCI, and fresh, frozen, or surgical AI.
Pregnancy comes from a litter, not from the breeding record. Create a litter with her as the Dam and fill in the Date Bred — the easiest way is the Create the litter button that appears right after you log the breeding. Once the litter exists, she shows as pregnant on the Litter Planner and her Whelping Watch countdown starts.
Yes. In the Log Breeding form, click Select a Sire and search his name. Reuse an outside dog with Use, or click Add a new outside sire and type his registered name.
Log it on your male. Open his profile, go to the Health tab, and click + Add Breeding in the Breedings section. Enter the Breeding Date and Breeding Method, then under Dam Used click Select a Dam and either pick her (your dogs and outside dams are listed together) or click Add a new outside dam to add her. Click Save. If the female is one of your dogs, BreederBuddy adds the matching breeding to her Health tab too. BreederBuddy then asks What’s next for this breeding? For an outside female you can Create the litter (only if you want to track her puppies) or click Skip. Pregnancy check and due-date reminders are only offered when the female is one of your dogs.
Yes. Click Log Breeding once for each tie or insemination. They all show under Breedings This Cycle on that heat cycle. Her litter has one Date Bred, so use the date you want her due date counted from.
Create a litter with her as the Dam and fill in the Date Bred (the Create the litter button after Log Breeding does this for you). BreederBuddy shows the estimated due date under Date Bred (61 days by default; click Change to set your own gestation length).
The calendar doesn’t draw a pregnancy bar. Once she has a litter with a Date Bred and no Date of Birth yet, the calendar shows her estimated due date as an “Est. Birth” event with the litter’s name. If you don’t see it, make sure the litter exists and that Est. Whelpings is ticked under Show on calendar in the panel on the left of the calendar. Pregnancy bars are on the Litter Planner.
Yes. On her Heat Cycles tab, click Add Heat Cycle for each past heat and enter its real Start Date. Next-heat predictions come only from her recorded heat cycles, using her typical gap between them (with one cycle on file, BreederBuddy assumes about 180 days). For past pregnancies, add each litter on the Litters page with its Date Bred and Date of Birth, and set Status to Completed.
On her Heat Cycles tab, under Estimated Next Heat Cycle. Upcoming heats also show as estimated heat cycles on your calendar, and for all your girls at once on the Litter Planner.
A breeding (from Log Breeding, or + Add Breeding on the Health tab) is a record of the tie or insemination. It doesn’t create a litter or a due date by itself. A litter is what tracks the pregnancy: once she’s the Dam on a litter with a Date Bred (usually with Status set to Planned), she shows as pregnant on the Litter Planner, gets an estimated due date, and her puppies can be added later.
Deleting a heat cycle also deletes its progesterone tests and unlinks any breeding records from it. The breeding records themselves stay on the Health tab.

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Still Have Questions?

We’re here to help. If something isn’t working the way you expect, or you’d like to have a discussion around a certain topic, please reach out to us anytime through the chat in the bottom right corner of your screen. Thank you.