Monday's big box o' links

Musher Sebastian Schnuelle [first in the 2009 Yukon Quest, 2nd in the 2009 Iditarod] rocks the earflaps-up look at the Iditarod restart in Wasilla. ADN photo by Bill Roth.

The official Iditarod site is awful, and not just because of a certain inescapable quitter. So ditch the official site, race addicts, and click on this link for awesome Iditarod coverage courtesy of the Anchorage Daily News. Feature stories, a blog, tweets, interactive maps: ADN wins it in a walk. I'm cheering for DeeDee Jonrowe [and her mom] and Colleen Robertia:

Several dogs in Robertia's Rogues Gallery Kennel — mostly "runts, rejects, retirees or rescues," she said — were rescued from the Kenai Animal Shelter and Alaska's Extended Life Animal Sanctuary in Nikiski. Others weren't wanted or needed by area mushers.

"I think they ended up taking two or three dogs from us," Tim Colbath, founder of the sanctuary, said of the Robertias.

"I hope she can finish it. To be able to take the time and knowledge to go through the rescues and get them to work together like that is just phenomenal." [Source: ADN.]

Penny, Colleen's lead dog, weighs a whopping 29 pounds — all of it heart. [That's Penny, top left, from the ADN.] Go, Colleen and Penny!

A few fave photos from the ADN:
The dangerous Mr. Mackey
Team Jonrowe
OMG, this is begging for a caption
Karen Ramstead's gorgeous Siberians

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Have an elderly Rottweiler? Dr. David J. Waters [pdf] really wants to meet you. Actually, he wants to meet your Rottie. Dr. Waters is traveling from coast to coast in order to see as many geriatric Rottweilers as he can:

The complete itinerary of the tour includes: March 11, Harrisburg, Pa.; March 12, Holliston, Mass.; March 13, Philadelphia; March 15, Keysville, Va.; March 16, Columbia, Tenn.; March 19, Cambridge, Wis.; March 20, Riverside, Iowa; March 21, Alma, Kan.; March 23, Red Oak, Texas; March 24, Castle Rock, Colo.; March 27, Colorado Springs, Colo.; March 28, Tijeras, N.M.; March 29, Waddell, Ariz.; March 30, San Diego; April 1, Pacific Palisades, Calif.; and April 3, Seattle.

Waters leads a research team that studies aging and cancer in pet dogs. The research includes the study of exceptionally long-lived Rottweilers - individuals that have lived to at least 13 years, which is equivalent to a human living to 100.

"These exceptional dogs have lived at least 30 percent longer than average for their breed," Waters said. "They have dodged cancer and other life-threatening diseases of aging. We believe studying them can shed light on what it takes to live well."

Over the years, Waters and his team have tracked the lives of more than 140 long-lived Rottweilers. Today, however, their database is down to just 15, hence the tour to meet these exceptionally aged canines.

"From questionnaires completed by owners and veterinarians, my team has validated dates of birth and collected a mountain of information about these dogs, including medical history, diet and dietary supplement usage, and parents' longevity," said Waters, who is also associate director of Purdue's Center on Aging and the Life Course and professor in the Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences.

At each stop, he will perform a physical examination, collect DNA samples, and record measurements such as height and chest and belly circumference. He will observe each dog in its home environment and query owners on what makes their dog exceptional.

Read more here, from Jennifer Viegas at Discover News: Oldest Rottweilers Inspire 'The Old Grey Muzzle Tour'.

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Keep. your dog. on a damn. leash. [H/T: DeltaBluez Stockdogs.] Heather points out that a little training wouldn't hurt, either. Speaking as one who has owned sheep: most people who say their unleashed dog has a reliable recall are either delusional or lying.

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Videos:
Canadian dude needs some viral help for a worthy cause. You got it, dude.
I love Local Commercials salutes Butt Drugs of Corydon, Indiana.
OK Go - This Too Shall Pass - Rube Goldberg Machine version. Yes, 20 billion people have seen it already, but maybe you missed it. I'm here to help.
A journey through Asia. Moving and beautiful.

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What an 8.8 [and the ensuing tsunami] can do, from The Big Picture.

• Conception, Chile, shifted 10 feet to the west.
• Santiago, Chile’s capital, was displaced about 11 inches to the west-southwest.
• Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, moved about 1 inch to the west.

Sure am glad a 7.5 is the most we can expect in these parts! [See A Faults (pdf).] Oh, yeah, nothing to worry about here.

Seriously folks, those of us along the southern [strike-slip fault] San Andreas will never experience the kind of subduction zone thrust-faulting they have in Chile [and in Alaska and the Pacific Northwest]. San Andreas — big-ass quakes. Subduction zones — frikkin' humongous quakes.

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Last, but not least — if you plan to be in the San Diego area in late March, you might want to attend Safer Pet Vaccination and Health Care: An Educational Seminar and Benefit. You'll spend the day with pet vaccination experts Drs. W. Jean Dodds and Ronald D. Schultz, and proceeds will go to the Rabies Challenge Fund. The seminar/benefit will be held at the Del Mar Hilton [across from the Del Mar Fairgrounds and Racetrack] on Sunday, March 28, 2010.

Ingrid Newkirk hopes your dog gets cancer

Not just Ingrid Newkirk, and not just any cancer, either.

Ingrid Newkirk of PETA and R. Rex Parris, the Mayor of Lancaster, California, both hope your dogs get bone sarcoma. Bone cancer, for crissakes! It's the law. Move out of town, minority scum, or we'll kill your Rottweilers and your pit bulls! Ingrid says: I love this law! Let's kill all the pit bulls!

This just in: when you slap a mandatory spay/neuter law on a breed like the Rottweiler [and in 2009, what society hacks off body parts as punishment?], you are sentencing dogs to death by cancer. Don't believe me? Here's the PubMed abstract. Excerpt:

Risk for bone sarcoma was significantly influenced by age at gonadectomy. Male and female [Rottweilers] that underwent gonadectomy before 1 year of age had an approximate one in four lifetime risk for bone sarcoma and were significantly more likely to develop bone sarcoma than dogs that were sexually intact.

What part of these findings don't Ingrid Newkirk and Mayor R. Rex Parris understand?

Seriously, people — bone cancer. One in four Rotties will suffer from it, if spayed or neutered before a year of age. [Other large breeds are also at risk.] Lancaster wants them all "fixed" before they're four months old.

It should be glaringly obvious by now that Newkirk, the so-called "animal rights" pooh-bah, doesn't give a rat's patoot about dogs. She wants them gone from our lives, one breed at a time or in bunches, by lingering deaths or quick ones, by stealth or by whatever canine version of Jim Crow she can espouse.

And Mayor R. Rex Parris doesn't give a rat's patoot about his law-abiding fellow citizens. He's happy as a clam to impose a death sentence on their dogs and subject families to the anguish of losing a friendly companion to confiscation or cancer. Maybe you shouldn't have let your tattoo show when you took the dog for a walk, eh? Maybe your son shouldn't have dressed like a normal middle-school student the last time he was in the front yard playing with your new Rott mix, eh? That'll teach you. Lancaster doesn't want your kind.

And for the record: When Newkirk says, among other truthinesses, "Pits and pit mixes are responsible for more attacks than other dogs - not just fatal attacks, but ones in which an eye or limb or self-confidence is lost for life," she's lying through her teeth. She's talking out of her elbow. She has no verifiable studies — because there aren't any — to back up her rant o' crazy. Don't take my word for it: pick up the phone, you folks who call yourselves journalists, and run Newkirk's nutty quotes by the real experts at the CDC and the AVMA.


What sort of mayor writes a bad law with the intention of wielding it selectively against people he doesn't like? What sort of person tells lies in order to have good dogs taken from their families and put to death?

[And why, oh why is anyone still listening to PETA?]

"Dogs deserve justice" — the irony, it burns!


Related:
PETA wants to kill my dogs -- and yours
Dogs white people like

Rottweilers, bone cancer and mandatory spay/neuter laws

Got a slew of posts to add, and I hate to start with such a sad one. It's important, though. I'll make the message as clear as I can:

Male and female Rottweilers spayed/neutered before 1 year of age have an approximate one in four lifetime risk for bone sarcoma and are significantly more likely to develop bone sarcoma than dogs that are sexually intact.

See this link for the abstract at PubMed. See this link for the complete study. From the abstract:

Endogenous gonadal hormone exposure and bone sarcoma risk.
Cooley DM, Beranek BC, Schlittler DL, Glickman NW, Glickman LT, Waters DJ.
Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907, USA.

Risk for bone sarcoma was significantly influenced by age at gonadectomy. Male and female dogs that underwent gonadectomy before 1 year of age had an approximate one in four lifetime risk for bone sarcoma and were significantly more likely to develop bone sarcoma than dogs that were sexually intact [RR +/-95% CI = 3.8 (1.5-9.2) for males; RR +/-95% CI = 3.1 (1.1-8.3) for females]. Chi(2) test for trend showed a highly significant inverse dose-response relationship between duration of lifetime gonadal exposure and incidence rate of bone sarcoma (P = 0.008 for males, P = 0.006 for females). This association was independent of adult height or body weight.

And no, it isn't just Rottweilers. From the essential report on spay/neuter health effects, by Laura Sanborn:

Osteosarcoma (Bone Cancer)

A multi-breed case-control study of the risk factors for osteosarcoma found that spay/neutered dogs (males or females) had twice the risk of developing osteosarcoma as did intact dogs[13].

This risk was further studied in Rottweilers, a breed with a relatively high risk of osteosarcoma. This retrospective cohort study broke the risk down by age at spay/neuter, and found that the elevated risk of osteosarcoma is associated with spay/neuter of young dogs[14]. Rottweilers spayed/neutered before one year of age were 3.8 (males) or 3.1 (females) times more likely to develop osteosarcoma than intact dogs. Indeed, the combination of breed risk and early spay/neuter meant that Rottweilers spayed/neutered before one year of age had a 28.4% (males) and 25.1% (females) risk of developing osteosarcoma. These results are consistent with the earlier multi-breed study[13] but have an advantage of assessing risk as a function of age at neuter. A logical conclusion derived from combining the findings of these two studies is that spay/neuter of dogs before 1 year of age is associated with a significantly increased risk of osteosarcoma.

The researchers suggest a cause-and-effect relationship, as sex hormones are known to influence the maintenance of skeletal structure and mass, and also because their findings showed an inverse relationship between time of exposure to sex hormones and risk of osteosarcoma.[14]

The risk of osteosarcoma increases with increasing breed size and especially height[13]. It is a common cause of death in medium/large, large, and giant breeds. Osteosarcoma is the third most common cause of death in Golden Retrievers[10] and is even more common in larger breeds[13].

Given the poor prognosis of osteosarcoma and its frequency in many breeds, spay/neuter of immature dogs in the medium/large, large, and giant breeds is apparently associated with a significant and elevated risk of death due to osteosarcoma.

Yes, Laura Sanborn is a leader in the fight against mandatory spay/neuter. Her review of the literature is evenhanded — quite the contrast with California's AB 1634 supporters, who are past masters at misinterpreting [I'm being kind, here] all types of data. And no, there is simply no way to spin the science and come up with anything that makes osteosarcoma appear less of a risk for medium size or larger dogs subjected to early spay/neuter.

If you support mandatory spay/neuter laws like AB 1634 or the recently passed spay/neuter law in the city of Los Angeles, you are apparently willing to condemn many dogs to an agonizing disease and a drastically shortened life on the entirely baseless speculation that this might somehow help reduce the number of dogs and cats in animal shelters.

God forbid individual citizens should make medical decisions based on what's best for individual animals — right, Lloyd Levine? Tell us again how your determination to mandate a dramatically increased risk of canine osteosarcoma is really no different from telling people to buckle their seat belts.


Related links:
Heartbreaking message posted in the Border Collie Boards In Memoriam section.
Dolittler post on amputation for dogs suffering from osteosarcoma. Nothing said about whether the Rottie was neutered — I'll ask.
Rottweiler Health Foundation.
.