Hunting Tests US

The 2024 National Retriever Championship is being held in Giddings, Texas and runs from November 9-16.

Retriever Results provides a free link to profiles of every dog entered in the event. You can filter the list by title, color, breed and sex as well as search by name. The profiles are comprehensive and include detailed information on each dog's career to date.

You can post photos and comments on the event's Facebook page here.

You can check out the free profiles here.

You can see stats on all the dogs qualified and entered here.

Tip of the hat to Kelly Curry for alerting the community.

Heterobilharzia. Schistosomiasis. Try saying that ten times fast, or perhaps just once.

A research initiative out of Texas A&M in College Station, Texas is investigating a fluke parasite that can affect dogs that spend time in freshwater. If the dog becomes infected it can cause significant disease in the liver and gastrointestinal tract. 

Dogs have been infected in a multitude of states including the Gulf States, Kansas, North Carolina, Indiana, Arizona, California and even as far north as Pennsylvania.

Clinical signs include diarrhea, vomiting and weight loss with or without anorexia. There are also a number of markers that can show up in lab tests.

A disease-specific fecal PCR test has been developed. (The routine test your vet may already be using does not detect this parasite.) Treatment protocols include a combination of Fenbendazole (panacur) and Praziquantel. These can be hard on the dog and hard on your wallet.

The research project is funded in part with a grant from AKC's Canine Health Foundation. 

• You can listen to a podcast (long, but worth a listen) here.
• You can find the Facebook group dedicated to the research here.
• You can find a presentation on the subject here.

Last week the Ojai California city council passed an ordinance banning "unethical breeding." The ordinance defines "unethical"  or "torture" breeding as the purposeful breeding of dogs and other animals they deem as "too flawed to continue." 

The ordinance benefitted from input from PETA's Cruelty Investigations Department. While the breeds called out in the ordinance (pugs, dachshunds, Boston terriers) commonly have health issues, this action does seem to represent something akin to the camel's nose being allowed into the tent.

You can read more from PETA's perspective here.