Vol. 43, No. 5 May 2017 CLUB LOGO UPDATE SNACKS 1
NEW IN THE DUAL DOG HALL OF FAME! Watson - CH Hillock's Hot On The Trail BN,RE,MH,MX,MXJ,AX,AXJ,OAP,OJP,XF,OF,CGCA,CGCU,WCX,VCX Congratulations Tammy Tomlinson, and Grace and Bob Samios 2
Greater Pittsburgh Golden Retriever Club Spring Hunt Test Our Spring Hunt Test is now open on Entry Express to enter. We hope to see you there on May 27 28! AND Have you ever thought about an event or program you would like our club to hold or sponsor? If so, bring it to a meeting and let s figure out how to make it happen! Old ideas as well as new ideas are welcome! 3
Congratulations on these achievements! New Titles and Awards Call Name Dog s Registered Name Title Earned Owner Watson Hillocks Hot on the Trail Excellent Fast, XF Tammy Tomlinson Watson Hillocks Hot on the Trail Standard Master Agility, MX Tammy Tomlinson Watson Hillocks Hot on the Trail Master Agility Jumper, MXJ Tammy Tomlinson Watson Hillocks Hot on the Trail Master Agility Excellent, MX Tammy Tomlinson Watson Hillocks Hot on the Trail Master Excellent Jumper, MXJ Tammy Tomlinson Watson Hillocks Hot on the Trail Dual Dog Hall of Fame, DDHF Tammy Tomlinson Rain Hillocks Tropical Rain Forest Canine Good Citizen, CGC Tammy Tomlinson Rain Hillocks Tropical Rain Forest Beginner Novice, BN Tammy Tomlinson Rain Hillocks Tropical Rain Forest Rally Advanced, RA Tammy Tomlinson Gibbs Shilo s Yorr Still the One Therapy Dog International, TDI Sharon Hackett Annie Lycinian Cozytale s Best Kept Secret Therapy Dog International, TDI Sharon Hackett The Pittsburgh Pirates are sponsoring PUPS IN THE PARK again this year. Check out the link below the picture for a schedule and to get more information! http://m.mlb.com/pirates/tickets/info/pup-night 4
National Heartworm Awareness Month Focuses Attention on a Potentially Deadly Disease Heartworm disease can have a devastating effect on your pet's health. National Heartworm Awareness Month, observed annually in April, reminds pet owners about the health dangers this preventable disease poses for pets. What Are Heartworms? Thin, white heartworms look like cooked pieces of spaghetti. Male worms range in length from 4 to 6 inches, but females can grow as long as 12 inches. Heartworm disease is spread when a mosquito bites an infected animal and later bites another animal. The bite deposits tiny heartworm larvae into the animal's bloodstream. It only takes about six months for the larvae to mature into fully grown worms. Once the worms are mature, they begin to mate, producing even more heartworms. Why is Heartworm Disease So Dangerous? Heartworms invade your pet's lungs, heart and blood vessels and cause permanent damage that can shorten your furry friend's life. The disease is more dangerous in dogs than cats because fewer worms grow to adulthood in cats. A dog can be infected with more than 200 heartworms, although the average is 15 to 30. Cats may only have a few mature worms or might only be infected with immature worms. Heartworms can live five to seven years in dogs and two to three years in cats, according to the American Heartworm Society. What Are the Symptoms of Heartworm Disease? In the early stages of the disease, there may be no obvious changes in your pet's health. As the worms grow and multiply, you may notice that your dog begins to cough. Their cough will gradually worsen as the disease progresses, and you may also notice that your pet tires easily and has difficulty breathing. A large number of worms in a dog may trigger a condition call Caval syndrome. The syndrome occurs when a bundle of worms prevents blood from flowing back into the heart. Emergency surgery is necessary to prevent death. Coughing and a decrease in activity is common if your cat has heartworm disease. Other possible symptoms include vomiting, diarrhea, lack of appetite and weight loss. You may notice that your cat isn't quite as active as usual. Even if your cat only has immature worms, its health can still be affected. Heartworm associated respiratory disease (HARD), a common problem in cats with heartworm disease, occurs when your pet's lungs become inflamed due to the death of immature worms. If your pet has HARD, it may cough, wheeze and have trouble breathing. Unfortunately, it's not always easy to tell the difference between HARD and feline asthma. How Is Heartworm Disease Treated? Drugs are available to kill both mature and immature heartworms in dogs. Because the medications are very strong, they can cause blood clots and other complications, in some cases. Your dog will also require frequent tests during heartworm treatment, such as blood tests and X-rays. The medications that kill heartworms in dogs are too strong for cats. Instead, your vet may recommend medications that treat your pet's respiratory and heart symptoms. Corticosteroids can be used to decrease inflammation, while bronchodilators will help your pet breathe easier. 5
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BEYOND LYME: TICK BORNE DISEASE ON THE RISE IN THE US It all started in the shower. Tucker Lane looked down, and there they were. "Two ticks, on my right hip, directly next to each other," he says. At the time, Lane didn't think much about it. He grew up on Cape Cod. Ticks are everywhere there in the summer. "Just another tick bite. Not a big deal," he thought. I was working outside, and I just had a pounding headache," says Lane, 24, who works as a plumber and at a pizza restaurant. He tried taking ibuprofen. But that night the headache got worse. "I was sweating but was cold. And I had tremors," he says. He started projectile vomiting. He developed a high fever and double vision. After two trips to the doctors and no improvement Lane's mother, Lynn Cash, called an ambulance. Forbidding Forecast For Lyme Disease In The Northeast At first, doctors wouldn't treat him, Cash says. "They accused him of opiate abuse." They thought Lane was going through withdrawal. But scans of his brain showed that it was swelling. And he was quickly losing consciousness. His doctors decided to rush him to Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. What Causes Pandemics? We Do 7
"By the time they got him upstairs [into a room], within another 48 hours, he was in a coma," Cash says. At that point, doctors were stumped. They thought he might have some kind of infection. "His MRI was very severe," says Jennifer Lyons, a neurologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital. "He had a lot of inflammation in the very deep parts of his brain." But she didn't know what was causing the infection. Cash felt differently. She says she knew exactly where the problem was coming from: "I knew it was a tick thing." Cash's family has been on Cape Cod for many generations; she has seen a lot of Lyme disease and even had it herself. But she had never seen anything like this. This was something new. Something even more frightening. The more we look, the more we find The world is in a new age of infectious diseases. Over the past 60 years, the number of new diseases cropping up per decade has almost quadrupled. The number of disease outbreaks each year has more than tripled since 1980. The U.S. is no exception. The country is a hot spot for tick-borne diseases. In the past 50 years, scientists have detected at least a dozen new diseases transmitted by ticks. Richard Ostfeld and Felicia Keesing, husband-and-wife researchers in upstate New York, are studying why Lyme disease and other tick-borne illnesses are getting worse. "The more we look, in a sense, the more we find," says Felicia Keesing, an ecologist at Bard College in upstate New York. "Around here, there's anaplasmosis, babesiosis and a bacterium related to Lyme, which causes similar symptoms." And that's just in the Northeast. In the Midwest, you can find Heartland virus, a new Lyme-like disease and Bourbon virus which is thought to be spread by ticks but hasn't been proven yet. In the South, there's Southern tick-associated rash illness. Out west, there's a new type of spotted fever. And across a big swath of the country, there's a disease called ehrlichiosis. Most of these diseases are still rare. But one is especially worrying. "It's a scary one," Keesing says. "Our local tick this blacklegged tick occasionally carries a deadly virus that's called Powassan virus," says Rick Ostfeld, a disease ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, N.Y. Powassan is named after a town in Ontario, Canada, where the virus was discovered in 1958. Now it's here in the U.S. The country records about seven cases each year on the East Coast and in the Upper Midwest. What makes Powassan so dangerous is that it attacks the brain, making it swell up. In about 10 percent of cases, Powassan is deadly. And if you do recover, you have about a 50 percent chance of permanent neurological damage. He was gone, just gone Although doctors didn't realize it at the time, it was Powassan flooding Lane's brain. 8
Just a few days after he came down with his terrible headache, he was on life support in the ICU. His mother was sure she had lost him. "If you opened his eyelids, he was just gone," she says. "I have never been so devastated in my whole life." Doctors told her there really wasn't anything else they could do for her son. But she never lost hope. "I did a lot of praying. I'll tell you that much," she says. Then one morning, Cash went to visit Lane. He had been in a coma for a week. When she opened the door, she recalls, "he turned his head and looked at me." Then he tried to speak. "The only thing that came out was a 'Ha,' " she says. "But he recognized me." From then on, Lane started to get better, quickly. He started to breathe on his own, to recognize people. In a couple of weeks he was out of the hospital. As he woke up, Lane says, he was never scared or worried, because he was always surrounded by his family. "My family and I are really close," he says. "So when I woke up, they were all around me. My cousins were just joking with me and making me laugh and stuff like that. So it was all good." And it was all good. Lane's recovery stunned doctors. "His recovery was truly remarkable," says Lyons, his doctor. But not everyone is as lucky as Lane. Back in 2013, Lyn Snow of Rockland, Maine, also was bitten by a tick. She was 73, a well-known watercolor artist. Less than a week later, she was in the ICU, just like Lane. "She subsequently went downhill, so unbelievably quickly," says her daughter, Susan Whittington. "She became incoherent and delusional. She was talking to paintings." Within a few weeks, she was on a ventilator and completely unresponsive. Weeks went by. Eventually, Whittington got a diagnosis: Powassan. Jack Snow looks at a photo of his late wife, Lyn, on the wall of their home in Thomaston, Maine. Lyn Snow was bitten by a tick in late 2013 and died of Powassan, a tick-borne virus. "That's when we knew it was unrecoverable," Whittington says. "That's when we knew that we would have to let her go. And that's what we did." "It was all horrific," she adds. "Just before my mom was bitten by the tick, she would walk 3 miles every day, ride horses with her grandchildren. She was an amazing grandma." Fighting back There are many ways to protect yourself from tick-borne diseases. Wear long sleeves, spray on DEET and check yourself every night in the mirror just to name a few. But protecting whole towns, or even just a neighborhood, has been difficult. "So far there have been no success stories of treating people's individual properties in reducing cases of tickborne diseases," says Keesing. 9
But she and Ostfeld, her collaborator and husband, are trying to change that. They think they've come up with a way that may finally cut down on the cases of Lyme, Powassan and other tick-borne illnesses in the Northeast. Their secret weapon is an unlikely critter. "I can already feel that it's a pretty fat mouse," Ostfeld says, as he pulls out a white-footed mouse from a trap that's been set up in a forest near his laboratory. The traps are metal boxes, about the size of wine bottles, hidden underneath leaves. "Mice love to enter them," Ostfeld says. "They love to enter dark tunnels." Ostfeld has been trapping and studying these little mice for more than 25 years. And he has found something critical to understanding tick-borne diseases: The mice are covered in ticks. For some reason, ticks flock to mice. Other animals groom the bloodsuckers off and kill them. But mice don't. They let the critters attach and feed on their face and ears. Ostfeld says he has seen mice with 50, 60, even 100 ticks on their face and ears. "When I first noticed this, it really grabbed my attention." Most of these ticks are carrying Lyme disease, Ostfeld has found. Others are carrying anaplasmosis, babesiosis or Powassan. Some ticks harbor two, three or even four pathogens at once. Theses observations gave him an idea: Use the mice to kill the ticks. Turn the mice into a little assassins, who run around the forest executing ticks. This idea is surprisingly simple to carry out. Remember those boxes Ostfeld uses to trap mice? What if you put a tick-killing chemical inside the boxes? A mouse walks into the box and is swiped with a little brush that applies a drop of the insecticide on its back. "The chemical is the same that people put on their dogs and cats," Ostfeld says. "But it's an even tinier drop, much tinier. So a little bit goes a long way." And it lasts a long time. For weeks after the mouse leaves the box, it kills ticks that land on it. But will it work in the real world? This spring Ostfeld and Keesing have launched an experiment with 1,200 families in upstate New York to find out. Some families will get these tick boxes in their yards. Some will get a fungus sprayed on their shrubbery, which is known to kill ticks. And some will get neither. Over the next five years, Ostfeld and Keesing will check to see whether the boxes and fungus keep people from getting tick-borne diseases. Keesing is hopeful. "If anything is going to work to reduce the number of tick-borne disease cases in neighborhoods, this is going to be it," she says. Because here's the thing about ticks: It's not enough for just one or two families in a neighborhood to protect their yards, Keesing says. The whole community has to come together, in a concerted effort, to fight the onslaught of tick-borne diseases. 10
Golden Retrieve Club of America (GRCA) All Golden lovers are encouraged to join our Parent Club, GRCA. The GR News is published bi-monthly by the GRCA and contains educational articles, provides a forum for issues of interest to Golden owners, highlights Golden accomplishments and contains correspondent columns from the Member Clubs across the country. Contact the Editor for more information. GREATER PITTSBURGH GOLDEN RETRIEVER CLUB (GPGRC) Member club of the Golden retriever Club of America, Inc. (GRCA) Master National Retriever Club (MNRC) Pennsylvania Federation of Dog Clubs, Inc. (PFDC) Licensed by the American Kennel Club (AKC) for Conformation Shows and Obedience, Rally and Agility Trials and Hunt Tests. General Membership Meeting is held the third Thursday of the month at 7:30 p.m. Membership applications are available from the Membership Chairperson. Attendance at two Club functions (one being a General Membership Meeting) and endorsement of two Club Members is required before an application can be accepted. Dues are: Regular Membership (individual) - $25.00, a second adult an additional $13.00. Associate Membership (individual) - $15.00, a second adult an additional $8.00. Junior Membership - $1.00. Completed applications and dues are to be submitted to the Membership Chair. Newsletter is posted monthly on the Club s Website at www.gpgrc.org. Club members may request printed, mailed copies of the Golden Gait for a fee of $20 per year. Litter advertisements are accepted from Club Members only on a space available basis. (Fees are full page - $10; half page - $5; quarter page - $2.50.) Refer to the Puppy Referral Policy and Breeder Code of Ethics for required clearances. In summary, puppy referral is a service provided to GPGRC Members only. (1) Both sire and dam must be two years of age or older at the time of breeding; (2) copies of eye clearances within one year of breeding must be supplied; and (3) an OFA numbers for hips and elbows must be submitted. Also hearts must be evaluated by an approved veterinary cardiologist. Acceptance and use of the information provided by GPGRC constitutes an acknowledgment that the user hereby releases and indemnifies the GPGRC and its Officers, Directors, Members and Agents from any and all liability and damages sustained by the user as a result of any information obtained from this organization. Title/Award Record Form should be filled out and sent to the Accomplishments Recorder for all Conformation, Obedience, Tracking, Agility, Rally, Field Events or Community Service Events before they can be reported in the Newsletter. If you have any matters you would like the Board to consider, contact the President, John Osheka, at 412-977-3870. 11
Monthly Meeting The monthly meetings are held at the Sisters of Holy Family of Nazareth, 301 Bellevue Rd 15229. Meeting begins at 7:30 P.M. Guests are Welcome! Directions from I-279: Take exit 12 toward US 19/Perrysville Ave. At Perrysville Avenue, turn left. Go approximately.8 mile and turn left onto Bellevue Road (Sunoco Station on corner). Go approximately.5 mile and turn right to stay on Bellevue Road. End at 301 Bellevue Road. Entrance to complex is one way. Sign will direct you to building. Yellow brick building behind large red brick building is the meeting place. There is an open parking lot or 2 deck parking garage available. OFFICERS President John Osheka 1908 Aspen Court Conway, PA 15027 412-977-3870 Vice-President Sally Dines 4120 Windfall Lane Gibsonia, PA 724-584-3300 Secretary Roseanna Frankowski 55 Marlin Dr West Pittsburgh, PA 15216 412-531 1424 Treasurer Melissa Jarvis 2344 Nevin Dr Franklin Park PA 15237 724-422-5160 Kris Tosadori 72 Kennedy Lane McKees Rocks, PA 15136 412-331-6588 DIRECTORS Marcy Kronz 407 Fairview Street Pittsburgh, PA 15220 412-377-7153 Ray Koper 169 William Circle McKees Rocks PA 15136 412-771-1995 COMMITTEE CHAIRPERSONS Accomplishment Recorder Kathy Fertal fertalkm@verizon.net. 412-341-2459 Agility Marcy Kronz 412-377-7153 AKC Liaison Kathy Fertal fertalkm@verizon.net. 412-341-2459 Community Services Education Roseanna Frankowski 412-531 1424 Equipment Field Training Day GRCA Delegate GRCA News Rep. Candy Verduce 412-951-7577 GPGRC Webmaster Megan McClung GRF Liaison Historian Grace West 412-341-6625 Hospitality Anne Pittman 724-355-5106 Membership Shirley Koper 412-771-1995 Merchandise Rosanna Frankowski 412-531-1424 Newsletter Sally Dines sallydines4120@gmail.com 724-584-3300 Puppy Referral Pat Depp 412-931-0590 Program Rescue Liaison John Osheka 412-977-3870 Specialty Sally Dines 724-584-3300 Please email me pictures of your dogs which I can use in future issues. sallydines4120@gmail.com GOLDEN GAIT - Greater Pittsburgh Golden Retriever Club, Inc.- Sally Dines, Editor Candy Verduce Co-Editor 12