This ingenious but rather simple instrument, the Norwegian Pipette, was developed in Norway in the 1970's by Dr. Jan Fogner  for depositing semen directly into the uterus of the fox. Since most vixens have a short breeding cycle as compared to the dog and they come in heat once a year and most all of them about the same time, you could monitor all vixens and make sure they all were bred.

By extending the semen volume and avoiding the large waste of semen in the vaginal tract, as in natural breeding, a good stud could be utilized on many vixens from one collection of his semen, using only a fraction of a studs total ejaculate on each insemination.

This was later applied to the canine and became quite successful in the Scandinavian countries. In the Veterinary circles in the United States and in many other countries this procedure was believed technically impossible because the canine cervix is small and its location so situated, that it could not be visualized.

Clone’s success is documented by the fact that their conception rate with frozen semen was 79 % before the use of the Trans-cervical Insemination technique and is now 87% in all breeds , inseminated using the Norwegian Catheter.

The procedure entails using a white 10 “plastic guide called a sheath, with a round hollow passageway through, in which a long tapered stainless steel catheter is inserted. The sheath is inserted into the normal vaginal tract within close proximity of the cervix. The normal cervix can not be visually noted as it is on a approx. 70 degree angle as noted in the picture.

The catheter is gently inserted through the sheath and extended just to the end of the sheath.
 

Then the abdomen is palpated with the left hand to locate the rigid sheath. The uterine body, sheath and the catheter are gently manipulated with your left and right hands to align the cervix with the catheter, until the small cervical entrance is finally located. The catheter is then pasted gently into the uterine cavity and the thawed semen is deposited into the uterine horns.
Since the cervix dilates at the optimum time of insemination, trans-cervical inseminations with the Norwegian Catheter is by far the best insemination method as the cervix can be palpated to see if it is dilated. This palpation can not been done with any other method not even endoscopic inseminations.


This procedure does take a lot of skill and practice to perform, however, once mastered it is easy and safe to perform. Contrary to rumors that it is dangerous to the bitch, in the hands of a skilled practitioner it is safe and quickly accomplished with no anesthesia or harm to the bitch. As a matter of fact, in over 3700 inseminations utilizing the Norwegian Catheter there has been only 12 instances of problems with pregnancies or infections with unknown origins. Where as with 1600 natural matings there is a reported 32  problems of unknown origins and pyometra. This means that artificial insemination with the Norwegian Catheter is far safer then natural mating.