pet connection

We passed one out of two tests, and now we’re just one pass away from McKenzie’s junior hunter (four passes are required). Alas, there’s not another test until February, and it may well be the case that McKenzie may be nursing puppies then.

Yep, I’m going there.

As we’ve argued here as part of the case against mandatory breeding bans, all breeders are not puppy-milling scum or clueless, careless back-yard breeders. So I will now for the first time soon be joining those who work to preserve our heritage breeds, in my case a retriever breed that remains a smart, loving and lively family member and versatile companion hunting dog.

Thirty years “in” dogs and a lifetime with them, and I will soon be catching a plane to the Midwest  with McKenzie for a three-night stand with a dog she’ll never meet again.  At least it’s not as bad as what her mother went through: My friend and McKenzie’s mom flew to Copenhagen, there to meet a top Swedish field dog whose owners brought him over on a ferry for the liaison.

McKenzie was conceived on Christmas Day 2004 in a Danish hotel room. Yes, dog people are crazydedicated.

The Midwest in winter is not a trip to Europe, but I don’t have a real winter coat, so that will be an adventure. Never driven in snow, either. Yes, I’m crazydedicated.

This week I have to get one more health clearance on McKenzie (her CERF certification; hips, elbows and patellas are already done) and then we just wait for nature to call as to when we book the flight.

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Lot of work today … deadlines galore. So I’ll end with how strange it is to be able to travel 1,000 miles in three days, compared to how impossible that was through almost all of human existence.

Still, it’s a haul, made easier by music. For a couple hours of yesterday’s seven-hour drive, I listened again to the first album I ever bought with my own money, Simon and Garfunkle’s “A Bridge Over Troubled Water.” I saved up the baby-sitting money to get it then; I seem to remember it was $3.99 on vinyl new in 1970, when I would have been 12 years old. Cost a little more on iTunes now, but well worth it. I hadn’t listened in years, but of course I remembered every word.

They call me Baby Driver, and once upon a set of wheels hit the road an I’m go-o-o-one, what’s my number, wonder how your engine feels.

Sha na na na, it’s good to be home.

Pictured: Drew, outstanding in his field, with the hunt test gallery in the distance behind him. I can honestly report he was stunned and rather horrified to see so many wet retrievers, and he does not understand why people will sit in chairs all day to watch retrievers, uh, retrieve.

Want to get a few laughs? Bring a Sheltie to a hunt test. I bet a full two dozen people stopped to tell me that there weren’t any sheep on the grounds, as if Pretty Boy Drew would herd anything anyway. A working dog this one is not. But he’s cute, and sweet as can be.

Gina’s off to Southern California to play with her dogs — she claims it’s a hunt test, but I think we all know the truth. While she’s gone, I have the keys to the blog. Nice change from the last few days of obsession with human politics.

Great reading for the weekend:

We share our Kim Thornton with MSNBC, and she did a terrific piece on an epidemic of pet theft that’s sweeping the nation:

Police reports don’t make a distinction between pet theft and other property theft, so there’s no way to pinpoint the exact number of stolen pets each year, but anecdotally, officers say that pet theft is increasing this year.

“More people are reporting it … and it seems to be occurring more frequently,” says Lt. John Kerwick, president of the U.S. Police Canine Association, Region 7, New York, an organization of officers who work with police dogs.

In the first five months of 2008, the AKC noted three times as many dog thefts as the year before.

In weird news, I couldn’t believe this was true when I saw it, but it is:

Britain’s environment secretary has sparked controversy with a list of proposed new rules that could mean jail time for pet owners who walk dogs on hot days.

Environment Secretary Hilary Benn’s proposed new codes of conduct for dog, cat and horse owners include rules that would allow for prosecution under the Animal Welfare Act of 2006, of pet owners whose animals become too thin, become too fat, are fed from the table or are walked on hot days, The Daily Mail reported Tuesday.

“This means no one will be able to claim ignorance as an excuse,” Benn said.

Some officials said they believe the new code of conduct goes too far.

“Some of these elements are over the top. This is not the sort of stuff we expected to be in the code,” Conservative agriculture spokesman Jim Paice said.

Gosh, ya think?

And I’m not sure, but I think UC Davis just threw down a challenge to the AKC to finally recognize the descendents of the Dalmatian/Pointer backcross project as a means to eradicating the gene for a form of kidney disease that is present in every purebred Dalmatian:

A gene mutation that causes high levels of uric acid in all Dalmatian dogs and bladder stones in some Dalmatians has been identified by a team of researchers in the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of California, Davis.

The discovery equips dog breeders with the tools to eliminate that trait from the Dalmatian breed and yields clues to the cause of similar problems in humans. The findings were published November 7 in the scientific journal Public Library of Science.

“This defect, which in dogs is peculiar to the entire Dalmatian breed, has been reported for nearly a century and was probably unintentionally introduced as breeders worked to select more distinctive spotting patterns,” said veterinary geneticist Danika Bannasch, lead author on the study.

“It is now possible that this trait can be removed from the breed by crossing Dalmatians with the normal offspring of the original Dalmatian-pointer breeding that occurred in the early 1970s,” she said.

[....]

“In recent years, dogs that are about 99 percent Dalmatian and one percent pointer have been bred, successfully eliminating the elevated uric acid trait,” said Bannasch. “The result is a healthy dog that that looks like a Dalmatian, maintains the Dalmatian breed characteristics and is genetically almost identical.”

She noted that those “backcrossed” dogs, which have been registered as Dalmatians with the United Kennel Club in the United States, offer a valuable resource for correcting the genetic defect that results in the elevated uric acid trait in the Dalmatian breed.

The complete release is here.

So, what are you and your critters doing this weekend?

Nothing shows the gap in understanding between people who think pets are family and people who think pets are just another piece of property than the proposal in California to tax veterinary services. From The Dog Channel:

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger announced a plan Thursday that would extend sales tax to include veterinary services, among other services, to help fix the state’s $11.2 billion shortfall.

“We have drastic problems that require drastic and immediate action — we must stop the bleeding right now,” Schwarzenegger said in a statement.

Hawaii, New Mexico, and South Dakota are the only states that tax veterinary medical services, including routine exams and vaccinations, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association’s state tax summary report. While California does not tax ancillary services, such as grooming and boarding, or prescription medications, it does tax non-prescription products, as do 33 other states.

Now, I have no problem putting a sales tax on non-prescription products, and on services such as grooming if services such as getting your drain unclogged by a plumber are also taxed (not sure if they are, but I’ll be finding out this morning, alas). But veterinary services? These should be off the tax table, along with prescription drugs.

Not only because I believe pets are family — which I do — but because veterinarians are an important part of the entire healthcare system, and need to be acknowledged as such. Threats to human health often start in animal populations, from viruses to tainted food. We need to keep our veterinarians as part of the public health team, and we don’t need any more barriers to keeping people from taking their pets in.

On the road again: In a little while I’m heading to Southern California (yes, again). No hob-nobbing with billionaires and fast racehorses this time: McKenzie and I will be trying to wrap up her junior hunter title at a two-day hunt test (wish us luck!), and Drew is going along for the ride. We’ll be staying with Audrey Pavia, my friend and co-author, and her wonderfully funny husband Randy. Audrey is the author of many books, including “Horses For Dummies,” “Horseback Riding For Dummies,” and two co-authored with me and Dr. Becker: “Why Do Horses Sleep Standing Up?” and our brand new “The Ultimate Horse-Lover.” I doubt they’ll be time for riding, but there certainly will be time for giving peppermints to Audrey’s horses.

Weird little AP piece that doesn’t even mention melamine, but nonetheless, it would appear the FDA is in for a shock, and maybe a return to its mandate:

The Food and Drug Administration, bedeviled by a salmonella outbreak and tainted medicine from China, is likely to monitor imports and fresh produce more closely under an Obama administration.

[...]

Long seen as the government’s premier consumer protection agency, the FDA stumbled under Bush. Recurring drug and food safety lapses came against a backdrop of shrinking budgets and long periods without a permanent leader. In Congress, a senior Republican complained the FDA had gotten too cozy with industry.

Obama is being urged to move quickly to appoint an FDA commissioner. Already more than a half-dozen names are in circulation: outside critics such as Cleveland Clinic cardiologist Dr. Steven Nissen; insiders such as Susan Wood, a former director of the FDA’s women’s health office; and public health advocates such as Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, Baltimore’s health chief.

Food safety will be a priority for Obama’s FDA. “He thinks this is a fundamental role of government to ensure that people’s food is safe and he has been concerned that we are not in a position to ensure that,” said Neera Tanden, a senior campaign adviser.

Here’s the article. Since the FDA seems to have long ago lost its copy of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 that was supposed to be its constitution, here it is. Read up, FDA. You have work to do.

Fortunately, the president-elect has his friend and mentor, fellow Illinois Sen. Dick Durban, to call on for help. No one did more during the pet-food recall to call the FDA on the carpet for its lapses, and no one has showed more leadership on the issue since.  (Image: President-elect Barack Obama with Sen. Dick Durbin.)

First, it seems Barney isn’t very happy about being asked how he feels about leaving:

And then, “The Daily Show” helps to “vet” the candidates for first dog: