Just when they thought they had it all figured out: Researchers into canine eye disorders discover an “unprecedented mode of inheritance”
This Is Not Your Grandma’s Humane Society
When a British Columbia woman experiencing fever, headaches and weight loss for two months finally went to her doctor, a blood test revealed she’d contracted a contagious disease from a dog she’d rescued in Mexico.
Dr. Elani Galanis, an epidemiologist and public health physician at the BC Centre for Disease Control, said the case was surprising because the previously healthy middle-aged patient didn’t seem to be a candidate for the transmission of brucellosis, which medical literature suggests can afflict people with weakened immune systems, or the very young and elderly.
“Up until this adult woman became infected and tested positive we felt like the risk to humans, although possible, was very, very low,” said Galanis, who wrote about the anonymous woman in a recent issue of the BC Medical Journal.
The woman worked for an animal-rescue organization that transported dogs to Canada from Mexico and the United States, often driving there to pick up the animals, Galanis said.
On one occasion, she was bringing back a pregnant dog from Mexico and likely came into contact with the animal’s pregnancy fluids as it spontaneously aborted two stillborn puppies, Galanis said, adding the dog later tested positive for the bacterium brucella canis and the woman was diagnosed after seeking medical treatment last December.
“Given the story in other places, like the rest of North America, this hasn’t been seen much before,” Galanis said of transmission of the disease to humans. “We’re just starting to see it so I do believe it’s a true emergence of a new problem.”
Local pet owners should hope she didn’t parade it through a Petsmart dripping fluids. The only cure for canine brucellosis is death.
This Is Not Your Grandma’s Humane Society
Asian influenza, asian distemper and now Asian brucellosis;
In March, six Wisconsin animal shelters and rescue organizations, including the Washington County Humane Society, Humane Animal Welfare Society in Waukesha, Humane Society of Sheboygan County, Elmbrook Humane Society and Underdog Pet Rescue, received 26 dogs transported from South Korea by Humane Society International.
None of the dogs transported from South Korea to Wisconsin show signs of illness, but diagnostic testing revealed two dogs to be positive for B. canis. Wisconsin law requires that positive canine brucellosis tests be reported to the state. Public health authorities with the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection were immediately notified and have led the response.
Each dog, even those that tested negative for canine brucellosis, will be quarantined until they are no longer considered at risk. In addition, shelter dogs that were potentially exposed to the dogs from South Korea will also be quarantined. In total, approximately 100 dogs are expected to require quarantine.
These dogs aren’t legitimate rescues — they’re profit generators for the “flip-that-rescue” scam.
Some dogs were placed into adoptive homes prior to the positive test results. In those cases, state public health officials are contacting adopters to instruct them to place the dogs in quarantine in the home.
“Quarantine”? The only “treatment” for breeding dogs with canine brucellosis is euthanasia.
Y2Kyoto: Claire, Do Not Work The Mules
#LoosFromTheHip Feb 20, 2019 I am really starting to enjoy the discussion about sources of GHG's and now 170 million pets equivalent to 70 million people #WorkingAnimals pic.twitter.com/NB1GGaXdcs
— Trent Loos (@trentloos) February 20, 2019
This Is Not Your Grandma’s Humane Society
As progressive veterinarians declare war on ethical Canadian dog breeders (wake up livestock producers — you’re next), the foreign “retail rescue” imports continue to flood in. And they’re bringing hitchhikers;
New Imported Distemper Strain in Dogs
Attempts were made to isolate the virus from the samples submitted for PCR, but with no success. Our next effort was to try to obtain sequence for virus directly from the nucleic acid used for the RT-PCR assay. This was successful for the F and H genes of CDV. Phylogenetic analyses of the sequences against various clades of CDV, indicated the imported dog was infected with the Asia-1 strain of CDV. We have no information on the existence of this clade of CDV in North America.
While we have been most concerned with the importation of canine influenza virus from Asia to North America by improper procedures by various “rescue” groups, the importation of CDV may be more significant in that CDV once it enters an ecosystem cannot be eradicated even with effective vaccines. Once again the North American dog population is being put at risk by those who have no regard for the importation of foreign animal diseases.
That’s right. They’ve imported a new form of distemper for which there’s no vaccine.
Update: …one dog out of a group of 26 dogs that were imported from Egypt by Unleashed Pet Rescue and Adoption in Mission, Kansas, tested positive for rabies.
February 9, 2019: Reader Tips
Pig Hunting feral pigs in New Zealand with dogs.
Thread’s open.
February 5, 2018: Reader Tips
Winnipeg dog park. Thread’s open for your tips.
Touched By Greatness
I was getting dogs ready at a show in Sacramento a couple of years ago when a nicely dressed couple approached and asked if they could meet the black dog I was grooming.
It was a really bad time, I explained, “I have to leave for the ring in a couple of minutes, please come back later.”
There were a pair of raised eyebrows, but they respectfully walked on.
My friend Julio, who was getting his dog ready at the table beside me, grinned.
“You just threw Barry Bonds out of your set-up.”
(I showed Apollo to his Canadian championship title earlier this year.)
Honey, I Finished The Internet
What do you hear?
This Is Not Your Grandma’s Humane Society
H3N2 Canine Influenza: Ontario
After eradicating the last outbreak in the spring, cases were identified again in mid-October, associated with more importation of dogs from Asia.
This Is Not Your Grandma’s Humane Society
… is a non-profit charity that exists simply to coordinate flights for rescues making their trafficking statistics much harder to trace. Just like HSUS which doesn’t run a single pet shelter in America, Pilots N Paws is also merely a cover. They don’t actually ship a single dog but they rake in the glory and donations. Like Wings of Rescue, they have a trademarked brand and corporate logo to protect and promote.
Backlash hit in 2016 when the real rescue volunteers who do the work that they take credit for went public with the truth. Now the Pilots N Paws website features the disclaimer below, still hiding the fact that they have $700,991 in assets, money donated to them by a public that doesn’t know they don’t rescue a single animal.
This Is Not Your Grandma’s Humane Society
To flog them for a fundraising campaign, that’s why: Why this Michigan rescue is bringing back puppies from Beirut
August 14, 2018: Reader Tips
Thread’s opened for your tips.
July 14, 2018: Reader Tips
Tip: Don’t get one of these unless you have a job lined up for it. (h/t Jamie)
Diversity Is Our Strength!
They’re coming for the “climate”: This parasitic worm can be deadly – and it’s coming to Europe
Not so long ago, human diseases caused by parasitic worms were thought to be confined to resource poor communities throughout Africa, Asia and South America. But in this age of global travel and changing climate, parasitic worms are slowly but surely moving into parts of Europe and North America. The long-term consequences of increased parasitic worm distributions are difficult to predict, but the harm that infection causes highlights the need for developing control strategies that can mitigate this 21st-century threat to global health.
h/t A Canadian
July 3, 2018: Reader Tips
Petty Officer Ashly Lester and how she became a two time winner of Yokota’s Iron Dog Competition.
Thread open for tips.
May 27, 2018: Reader Tips
Goldendoodle or Labradoodle — which one do you hear?
That’s my tip for today. Share yours in the comments.
This Is Not Your Grandma’s Humane Society
The hottest new trend in virtue signalling: 200 puppies rescued from the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone are bound for the U.S.
h/t Vinnie
The Sound Of Settled Science
This large scale data collection involved 9938 dogs;
In many countries, the vast majority of male dogs are castrated routinely to prevent the overpopulation which has crowded many shelters and forced them to euthanize countless numbers of dogs. However neutering male dogs has also become a routine suggestion of many veterinarians when their clients tell them that their dog has shown aggression—especially toward family members, or for a variety of large or active breeds. So this recent study sought to see if there were any behavioral benefits or problems associated with neutering, and to see if the age at which the dog was neutered made any difference. […]
As in previous studies, the new data clearly shows that the positive behavioral effects that were expected from neutering dogs did not occur, and if anything, the behaviors of neutered male dogs tended to be considerably less desirable. Of the 100 behaviors assessed 40 showed statistically significant differences between the castrated and intact dogs. Only four of these behaviors showed a more positive outcome as a result of neutering. Neutered dogs were less likely to urine mark indoors, or to howl when left alone. Neutered dogs, when off leash, were also more likely to return when called, and also tended to reliably fetch tossed items. That’s it for the positive effects of neutering. The other 36 behaviors were all more negative in neutered male dogs.
This Is Not Your Grandma’s Humane Society
“We have breeders that breed for the auction,” says Will Yoder, a commercial breeder of Cavalier King Charles spaniels in Bloomfield, Iowa. “It’s a huge, huge underground market. It’s happening at an alarming rate.
The crazy Cavalier people were among the first to launch this insanity about 20 years ago, buying up Cavs for exorbitant prices to the glee of commercial breeders. Now it’s grown into a fundraising scam.