Canine Cryobank

producing pups worldwide for over 30 years

Canine Cryobank achieves 100% Success Rate with Frozen Semen,Three times in 12 months The Early Years

Canine Cryobank was started in 1981 by myself, Carol Bardwick, and Steve Broder, a young cryobiologist, in Los Angeles. A small company, we always surprised ourselves and others. When recent canine semen companies talk about the millions of dollars spent in research to develop their extenders and techniques, Steve and I remember our first visit with the American Kennel Club representatives. Their mouths dropped when we told them we had spent three months and US$300 in research cost for our first litter. AKC had funded researchers with thousands of dollars for frozen semen research and was led to believe the procedures were expensive, complicated, and the technology secret. Six Cardigan Corgis were born from our first insemination done by Dr. Richard Martin in West Los Angeles.

Canine frozen semen was being pooh-poohed at the Theriogenology meeting in Denver in 1984. At that time we had a 100% conception rate. I was intimidated by all the learned academics saying frozen semen didn't work and didn't say anything! But, I'll never forget a veterinarian in the audience and telling the professor, who had just announced poor conception rates at her institution, "Gee, I just had a frozen semen litter with frozen semen from Canine Cryobank and I never handled the stuff before!"

The litters keep arriving, no progesterone testing or surgical inseminations in those days...

After the first litter, we shipped semen seven times and had six litters. All litters were produced by veterinarians using whatever artificial insemination method they happened to know. Back then, the only training we offered was one page of written thaw instructions. Those were the days before progesterone testing and surgical inseminations. Now, of course, we have a videotape on artificial insemination equipment. In our clinic, we now place semen in the oviducts in a non-surgical procedure, do surgical inseminations, and us the "old method," intervaginal inseminations. Canine Cryobank, Inc. purposefully developed its Freeze/Thaw process and services so that a private practice veterinarian may successfully inseminate with thawed semen.

After realizing that we couldn't do it alone,we found a reproduction specialist

Steve and I realized during the first year of operation that canine frozen semen was not going to be the multi-million dollar business that human sperm banking is today. First, dog people want a certain stud and nothing can dissuade them to switch dogs. Dog owners are concerned about inheritable genetic disease and phenotype. People going to a human sperm bank never ask about the genetic makeup of the sperm besides hair color, height, and race. They do often ask if the donor was a student in a professional discipline. Dog owners will decide on a particular stud and move heaven and earth to breed to that dog!

The other reason custom semen banking for dogs would always be limited: Not enough semen was capable of withstanding the processing. The incidence of infertility was dramatic in purebred dogs and we had no way of helping those dogs. We needed a reproduction specialist.

In 1984 after finding out there were very few small animal reproduction specialists, we convinced Priscilla Stockner to move to California and start her specialty practice in conjunction with the sperm bank. She was uniquely qualified for our growing business. Besides her veterinary degree, Priscilla had a Masters in Reproductive Physiology and an MBA. And, just as important as her research and academic background, she had been an active dog enthusiast, raising, showing and hunting several breeds.

Other veterinarians became licensees including one from Europe and Japan

Priscilla wanted to educate other veterinarians in reproduction protocols for the serious breeder and fancier. She and I traveled all over the world lecturing on small animal reproduction for the practitioner.