| Summary: | The common dog, Canis lupus familiaris, mates in the traditional dorsoventral mount position. Because neither the male nor the female can see their genitals during the dorsal-ventral mount, the geometric alignment of several physical factors must be accomplished for males to successfully delivery their sperm into the female's vagina. In this study, a conservative estimate of the random probability of mating success was calculated in the same way as one would calculate the random probability of a dart hitting the center of a target. One would determine the area of the bull's-eye, the female's vagina, relative to the area of the entire target, the female's posterior. A conservative estimate of the probability of random mating success for the common dog was 0.45% or at less than five chances out of a thousand. To increase the probability of mating success, the male and female must be of similar height; the male's shaft must be sufficiently long; the angle of erection must be sufficiently acute; and male's belly must be sufficiently lean to mount the female in such a way that his shaft is able to penetrate the female's vaginal canal.
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