This x-ray shows a dog with bilateral (both sides) hip dysplasia.

The results indicate that traditional scoring of radiographs that certify dogs for breeding underestimate their osteoarthritis susceptibility. The results are of clinical importance to several populations, most notably veterinarians, breeders and pet owners.

The two hip screening methods — the standard Orthopedic Foundation for Animals, or OFA model, and Penn Vet’s PennHIP model — were applied to a sample of 439 dogs older than 2 years. The four most common breeds included in the study were German shepherds, Labrador retrievers, golden retrievers and Rottweilers, all breeds commonly susceptible to hip dysplasia.

According to Penn researchers, even if breeders were to selectively breed only those dogs having OFA-rated “excellent” hips — the highest ranking but in some breeds, a very small gene pool, the study suggests that 52-100 percent of the progeny, depending on breed, would be susceptible to hip dysplasia based on the Penn Vet scoring method.

“We believe the lower rates of hip laxity detection using the OFA methods are not the fault of the expert radiologist reading the radiograph but rather a deficiency of the radiographic view,” said veterinary surgeon Gail Smith, professor of orthopaedic surgery, lead author and director of the PennHIP Program. “We believe many veterinarians are not using the best test to control a disease. In many ways this is an animal-welfare issue.”

The findings point to a weakness in current breeding practices. If breeders continue to select breeding candidates based upon traditional scores, then, according to the Penn study, breeders will continue to pair susceptible dogs and fail to improve hip quality in future generations. Despite well intentioned hip-screening programs to reduce the frequency of the disease, canine hip dysplasia continues to have a high prevalence worldwide with no studies showing a significant reduction in disease frequency using mass selection.

Canine hip dysplasia, or CHD, is defined by the radiographic presence of hip joint laxity or osteoarthritis with hip subluxation (laxity) early in life. A developmental disease of complex inheritance, it is one of the most common orthopaedic diseases in large and giant-breed dogs and causes pain and loss of mobility.

The traditional OFA screening method relies heavily on conventional hip-extended, or HE, radiographs, which the study contends do not provide critical information needed to accurately assess passive hip joint laxity and therefore osteoarthritis susceptibility.

“We suspect that all hip-screening systems worldwide based on the HE radiograph have similar diagnostic deficiencies,” Smith said. “Hopefully, our results will motivate veterinarians and breeders to consider this newer approach.”

To achieve genetic control of CHD, researchers said, an accurate test must minimize false-negative diagnoses which mistakenly permit the breeding of dogs that carry genes coding for CHD. Particularly for a late-onset disease such as CHD, dogs remaining in the gene pool must not only be free of obvious signs of CHD at the time of evaluation (2 years of age for OFA) but ideally should not be susceptible to the osteoarthritis of CHD that occurs later in life.

The PennHIP method quantifies hip laxity using the distraction index, or DI, metric which ranges from a low of .08 to greater than 1.5. Smaller numbers mean better hips. The PennHIP DI has been shown in several studies at multiple institutions to be closely associated with the risk of osteoarthritis and canine hip dysplasia. It can be measured as early as 16 weeks of age without harm to the puppy.

Specifically, the PennHIP method considers a DI of less than .3 to be the threshold below which there is a near zero risk to develop hip osteoarthritis later in life. In contrast, dogs having hip laxity with DI higher than .3 show increasing risk to develop hip osteoarthritis, earlier and more severely, as the DI increases.

Comparing the overall results of the study, 52 percent of OFA-rated “excellent,” 82 percent of OFA-rated “good” and 94 percent of OFA-rated “fair” hips all fell above the PennHIP threshold of .3, making them all susceptible to the osteoarthritis of CHD though scored as “normal” by the OFA. Of the dogs the OFA scored as “dysplastic,” all had hip laxity above the PennHIP threshold of .3, meaning there was agreement between the two methods on dogs showing CHD or the susceptibility to CHD.

The key feature of the PennHIP radiographic method is its ability to determine which dogs may be susceptible to osteoarthritis later in life. Because dogs are recognized as excellent models for hip osteoarthritis in humans, the authors are interested in the prospect of applying this technology to humans. Knowing a dog’s risk for osteoarthritis early would allow veterinarians to prescribe proven preventive strategies, like weight loss, to lower the risk of this genetic disorder. Also, dog breeders now have a more informative measure to determine breeding quality to lower the risk of hip osteoarthritis in future generations of dogs.

“In humans, with appropriate studies of course, it is conceivable that mothers of susceptible children — and there are many — may adjust a child’s lifestyle, including diet, to delay the onset or lessen the severity of this genetic condition,” Smith said.

PennHIP is currently in common use by service-dog organizations such as the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Army and numerous dog-guide schools. There are approximately 2,000 trained and certified members currently performing PennHIP procedure worldwide.

The study was conducted by Smith, Michelle Y. Powers, Georga T. Karbe, Thomas P. Gregor, Pamela McKelvie, William T. N. Culp and Hilary H. Fordyce of the Department of Clinical Studies at Penn Vet. Culp is currently with the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of California, Davis.

The study was funded by the University of Pennsylvania, the National Institutes of Health, The Seeing Eye Inc., the Morris Animal Foundation and Nestle Purina Co. The article was published in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association.

Smith, who is the inventor, and the University of Pennsylvania, which holds the patent, have a financial interest in the PennHIP method.

ScienceDaily (Sep. 2, 2010)

The state Assembly on Thursday passed the bill by a 44-10 vote, sending it to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

The bill’s author, Democratic Assemblyman Pedro Nava, says it is unconscionable for landlords to require pet owners to subject their animals to permanent surgeries as a condition of tenancy.
Under AB2743, landlords would be fined $1,000 for demanding those procedures in a lease agreement.

Eight local governments in California recently banned the practice of cat declawing, calling it inhumane.

It is by no means a done deal to assume that Gov. Schwarzenegger will sign the bill without serious opposition.

According to the Paw Project, the California Veterinary Medical Association (CVMA) strongly opposes this bill, and is lobbying hard to defeat it. They will work now to share their views with Gov. Schwarzenegger and are already enlisting members of the association to express their negative stand on its passage. On their website, the Paw Project states, “The CVMA is powerful because many legislators automatically support the position held by a trade or business association”.

The San Diego Padres baseball team is in hot water, and not just for keeping the San Francisco Giants at bay.

The team is to host “The Dog Days of Summer” event at the team’s Petco Park August 27th. But some breeds of dogs will not be welcomed.

Ted Lew, who owns a German Shepherd dog he takes to hospitals as a therapy dog, found out about the ban after he tried to sign up to participate in the event that allows dog owners to bring their dogs for pet-related events prior to the baseball game.

The Padres say the breed restriction is for safety reasons, but they wouldn’t say just which breeds are off-limits. They would only say the number is between 10 and 15.

The list is part of an “internal document that we’re not at liberty to release,” Mark Guglielmo, vice president of ballpark operations for the Padres, said Friday.

Lew doesn’t get the ban because people who attend have to sign a waiver saying they’ll assume all risks if their dogs go all Cujo on anyone.

“It’s like signing your life away,” he said.

Dog Days of Summer is presented by Petco, the pet store chain. But Petco’s marketing and public relations department didn’t know of the Padres’ policy, which it doesn’t support, said spokeswoman Jenie Altruda.

Petco officials spoke with the Padres after receiving a complaint from Lew. They were under the impression that the policy was amended recently. Petco even went as far as to offer Lew tickets to the game, thinking his dog was okay to get in.

But the company had to rescind the offer after the Padres said they were sticking to their ban.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

According to a new survey from AAA, 31 percent of dog owners admit to being distracted by their pet while driving.

It gets worse.

Nearly 60 percent say they’ve been distracted at least once by Fido and 55 percent say they pet their dog while driving. One in five will allow their dog to sit on their lap. Seven percent say they’ve fed their dog while driving and five percent admit playing with their dog while behind the wheel of a moving vehicle.

AAA conducted the study with Kurgo, a company that just happens to make car restraints for animals. So, the Automobile Club’s message in all this is pretty obvious: Restrain your pet while driving and keep your eyes on the road.

While 80 percent of the 1,000 dog owners responding to the survey say they have driven with their pets on a variety of car trips, only 17 percent use any form of restraint for their dog.

According to the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety, looking away from the road for only two seconds doubles your risk of being in a crash.

The online study was conducted among a sample of 1,000 dog owners who have driven with their dog in past 12 months. The study results have an average statistical error of +/- 3.1 percent at the 95 confidence level.

County supervisors on Tuesday delayed deciding what do about the Animal Care and Control Department in the wake of a controversial firing, but they balked at hiring a consultant to help with that analysis.

County Administrator Veronica Ferguson had asked supervisors for 60 days and the authority to hire a consultant as she weighs whether animal care should be separated from the Agricultural Commissioner’s Office.

That became a possibility after Ag Commissioner Cathy Neville decided to fire Amy Cooper on July 12, 48 hours before the former animal care director was to become a permanent county employee.

Supervisors on Tuesday instead gave Ferguson less than a month to come back to them with a recommendation, and urged her to do the analysis in-house rather than spend money for an outside consultant.

“There’s a definite angst in the community that we are not moving quickly enough to address these concerns,” said Supervisor Efren Carrillo. He acknowledged some “obvious issues pertaining to personnel issues” but said that he would not discuss them.

Several speakers on Tuesday criticized supervisors for not addressing those concerns, and specifically, the widespread calls for Cooper to be re-instated.

“There was a terrible wrong done to the department and it needs to be addressed,” Myma Spiegler said.

Added shelter volunteer Robin Johnson: “Let’s not fix what wasn’t broken. Please don’t waste taxpayer dollars on a consultant. We already have found the right person for the job, and that’s Amy Cooper.”

Neither Neville nor other county officials have publicly stated the reasons why the ag commissioner fired Cooper, citing personnel rules as barriers to that disclosure.

But comments that Neville made during Tuesday’s meeting were interpreted by some animal care employees and managers as criticism of Cooper.

Asked by a supervisor if she supports the county’s analysis of the animal care department, Neville answered by saying that “everybody needs to keep in mind” that the shelter is supposed to serve animals from within Sonoma County, and not those from outside the area.

“I can’t stress that enough,” she said.

Neville declined to say after the meeting whether her comments amounted to criticism of Cooper. “I’m not talking about Amy Cooper,” she said.

She did say that she would not interpret moving animal care from her department as a sign of disagreement with her decision to fire Cooper.

“Not at all,” she said. “I don’t think it has anything to do with that. I think it’s time to look at the proper placement for animal care.”

Several animal control employees said the intended target of Neville’s remarks during Tuesday’s meeting was clear to them.

“I took it as a slam against Amy Cooper,” said Jeff Clemens, a supervising animal control officer who watched the proceedings on TV. “It was such a pathetic, cheap shot, and it had no validity.”

In October, about three months into her tenure, Cooper approved taking in 25 dogs from Monterey County’s animal shelter to help ease overcrowded conditions there.

Six dogs were brought to Sonoma County from Monterey in December, followed by another transfer in February. Shelter staff did not have those numbers available Tuesday.

Shelter supervisor Cathy Fenn said all of the dogs were adopted, save for two that had to be destroyed because of illness.

She said R.J. Kamprath, a vocal shelter critic, raised questions about the transfers, including that other dogs allegedly were destroyed to make room for the Monterey animals and that the adoptions skewed the shelter’s data on euthanasia rates.

But Fenn said the shelter had space for the transferred dogs. She said the dogs could have been logged separately from in-county animals so as not to alter the data but she did not know Tuesday if that had occurred.

“A lot of people thought we brought them in to make money. Adoptions don’t make us money,” Fenn said. “We just thought it was a way of helping another agency that was overflowing with dogs.”

Whatever the case, the transfers were not a secret, and were written about in the February edition of Paw Prints, the shelter’s monthly newsletter.

Clemens said the practice fulfilled one of the missions that Neville had outlined for Cooper, which was to collaborate with other animal welfare agencies.

“Sonoma County has always been willing to help out other shelters,” Clemens said. “If we had room, we would help offset shelters that were bursting at the seams. And if we had a surplus of cats or dogs, other shelters would reciprocate. It was a win-win.”

Cathy Neville, Sonoma County Agriculture Commissioner.

Sonoma County supervisors are likely to weigh in next week on the future of the county’s Animal Care and Control Department, a month after the abrupt firing of the department’s director ignited a storm of protest.

While details of the board’s discussion were still being hammered out Tuesday, County Administrator Veronica Ferguson said it probably will include options for separating animal care from the Agricultural Commissioner’s Office.

Commissioner Cathy Neville’s decision to dismiss Amy Cooper on July 12 was greeted with widespread criticism from animal care employees and from officials at other animal welfare agencies.

Neville stands to lose significant managerial oversight because 32 of the 63 employees that currently report to her office are assigned to animal care and control.

She also likely would suffer a sharp reduction in her agency’s budget, which was $8.67 million for this fiscal year.

Ferguson said Tuesday that the issue does not amount to a referendum on Neville’s job performance. Rather, she and other county officials portrayed it as a re-examination of departments that, in the case of animal control, predated Cooper’s departure.

“What I’ve focused on is what we do well at the shelter, and how do we keep doing it given the strides that we’ve made,” Ferguson said.

However, any discussion of how to reorganize departments does not address concerns of critics who have been clamoring for an explanation of why she fired Cooper 48 hours before Cooper’s year-long probationary status was set to expire.

It also does not address calls that Cooper be re-instated to her job.

Nearly every employee at animal care and control, including the department’s three ranking managers, submitted letters of protest to supervisors demanding Cooper’s re-instatement. Other employees helped pay for a newspaper ad that denounced Cooper’s firing.

Officials at other animal welfare agencies have echoed that sentiment.

Ferguson dispatched a county analyst to interview animal care employees. Those interviews, which are set to wrap up on Thursday, will form the basis of recommendations forwarded to supervisors.

County officials say personnel laws prevent them from publicly discussing either Neville’s job performance or the reasons for her decision to fire Cooper.

Neville, who did not return a call seeking comment Tuesday, already has given her version of events to supervisors in closed door meetings.

Cooper was scheduled to meet with a county human resources manager today for what the county billed as an exit interview.

She declined comment when reached Tuesday. She earned $101,916 annually and was an at-will employee, which meant she could be dismissed for any reason without explanation. She has no right to appeal the decision.

Supervisor Valerie Brown, the board’s chairwoman, said she feels “a little more of a comfort level” over the decision Neville made after hearing from the ag commissioner.

But Brown, who in April lauded Cooper publicly for turning around an agency that has had two directors since 2006 and faced a barrage of criticism, said supervisors still are not satisfied with the way Neville handled the situation.

“I would not characterize the meeting with Cathy as being one where she believed the board said, ‘We understand and it’s OK.’ The board is unhappy with what happened,” Brown said.

Still, Brown said it’s “unlikely” that Cooper will be asked to come back.

“We’re actually looking at a broader base of options,” she said.

Supervisor Shirlee Zane said Cooper’s possible return is still “a question mark” and that there are “two sides to every story.”

She said her concern is that supervisors not be perceived as micromanaging a department head.

“I’m not interested in micromanaging them in any way, but at the same time, this issue obviously is not going away,” she said.

West County Supervisor Efren Carrillo declined Tuesday to discuss what he called a personnel matter. But he suggested that he will support moving animal care to another department.

“As it stands, I think there’s a better fit for animal care and control in the county structure,” he said.

Supervisor Mike Kerns declined comment while Supervisor Paul Kelley did not return a phone call.

Ferguson said she does not have a preferred option for what to do with animal care and that she is waiting on the staff report and feedback from supervisors.

County staff also surveyed 38 other California counties and learned that animal care is under the jurisdiction of the ag commissioner’s office in only four of them.

Most of the counties align animal care with their health and human services departments, the analysis found.

A microchip is credited with returning a cat to his owner in San Francisco from New York.

Jack Daniels arrived in San Francisco on Tuesday aboard a JetBlue Airways flight. SPCA officials say the kitten was only 3 months old when it was abducted from their adoption center in July 2009.

They have no idea who took it or how it got to New York. But the male cat was found and picked up by animal care and control officials around 110th Street in New York City on July 31. It looked healthy — weighing around 11 pounds — and didn’t appear to have spent much time outdoors.

A microchip on the cat helped determine it was from San Francisco.

SPCA officials say the cat has scarred corneas that make its vision blurry.

According to the Associated Press, Casey Barton Behravesh, the report’s lead author and a researcher at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said that dry pet foods are not typically targeted as a Salmonella source in humans and that this emerging issue points to the probability that there may be more Salmonella poisoning cases that also originated in this way. Wet pet food has not been linked to Salmonella illnesses in humans, to date, noted the AP.

This year alone, at least six separate pet food recalls have been issued due to the potential of Salmonella contamination, said the AP, citing U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) data. Ira Allen, a spokesman for the FDA, said no reported Salmonella sickness have been connected to pet food since the outbreak in 2006-08, said the AP. The research was published online today by the journal Pediatrics.

The 2006-08 Salmonella outbreak was blamed on a variety of dry dog and cat food brands in which Salmonella bacteria was found, said the AP. The contaminated food was produced at a Mars Petcare US plant in Pennsylvania, said the AP; the foods involved included Pedigree and Special Kitty.

Nothing indicates that the children who fell ill ate the pet food, said Behravesh. The children likely got sick by touching dirty pet bowls and then putting their hands in their mouths, reported the AP. While pets were not reported as having become ill, investigators discovered Salmonella in stool samples from pets who ate tainted food, but did not exhibit symptoms, wrote the AP. The manufacturer issued a recall and closed the processing plant in 2008 when the investigation did not turn up the contamination source; training and testing practices were enhanced at 17 other Mars plants said the regulatory director at Mars.

Salmonella can affect animals and there is risk to humans from handling contaminated pet products. People handling contaminated pet food can become infected with Salmonella, especially if they have not thoroughly washed their hands after having contact with the chews or any surfaces exposed to these recalled products.

Healthy people infected with Salmonella should monitor themselves for some or all of the following symptoms: nausea, vomiting, diarrhea or bloody diarrhea, abdominal cramping, and fever. Rarely, Salmonella can result in more serious ailments, including arterial infections, endocarditis, arthritis, muscle pain, eye irritation, and urinary tract symptoms. Consumers exhibiting these signs after having contact with this product should contact their healthcare providers immediately.

Pets with Salmonella infections may be lethargic and have diarrhea or bloody diarrhea, fever, and vomiting. Some pets will have only decreased appetite, fever, and abdominal pain. Infected but otherwise healthy pets can be carriers and can infect other animals or humans. If your pet has consumed the recalled product and has these symptoms, please contact your veterinarian immediately.

Heating during pet food manufacturing typically kills the Salmonella pathogen; however, Behravesh said the problem might have taken place later in the manufacturing process, wrote the AP.

THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Amy Cooper

Amy Cooper's firing as Animal Care and Control chief has drawn criticism.

Supporters of Sonoma County’s deposed Animal Care and Control director showed up in force at Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting to denounce her firing and urge county officials to bring her back.

Supervisors discussed Amy Cooper’s firing in closed session but did not report taking any action on the matter.

Critics of the dismissal, which occurred 48 hours before Cooper’s yearlong probationary status was to expire, have waged a public campaign to get her back.

Some have also called for the ouster of Agricultural Commissioner Cathy Neville over her decision to fire Cooper, and for the two departments to be separated. Currently, the ag commissioner’s office oversees animal control.

John Prouty, president of the Sonoma Humane Society’s Board of Directors, told supervisors that Cooper had helped establish one of the strongest collaborations between the society and county shelter in the long history of the two agencies.

“Her efforts in reaching out to shelters and rescue groups have saved countless lives of animals and reduced euthanasia rates tremendously,” Prouty said.

Prouty urged supervisors to bring Cooper back and to make animal control its own agency, saying “the public and our animal companions may be better served by a separate, newly formed department.”

Warin Parker, a former Windsor mayor, said Cooper’s departure reflected “serious management issues” and an added burden for taxpayers because of the costs associated with finding and hiring her replacement.

He called for Neville to be fired and for Cooper to be re-instated.

Cooper, who was dismissed July 12, earned $101,916 annually and was an at-will employee, which meant she could be dismissed for any reason without explanation. She has no right to appeal the decision.

At the time, Neville said she would move quickly to find a replacement for Cooper. But as yet, that process has not formally begun.

“We’re waiting for the approval to get the recruitment open,” said Jennifer Murray, the county’s interim assistant human resources director.

Several animal control employees attended Tuesday’s meeting to show their support for Cooper.

Employees previously submitted letters to supervisors demanding Cooper’s re-instatement and have been meeting with a county official to relay their concerns about her departure.

Outside board chambers on Tuesday, Jeff Clemens, an animal control officer who has been speaking on behalf of the department’s 32 employees, said they won’t be satisfied with anything less than Cooper’s return.

He added that many have also lost confidence in Neville.

“I think it would be very difficult for our department to remain under the current management of Cathy Neville,” he said.