Kennel Cough Death - show people please check

[Dauxside]

This is sadly forwarded with permission (message in quotes). Feel free to forward and share as you think is necessary.

I, along with many judges I know, never examine dogs' bites myself --
I always ask the exhibitor to show me the bite after I examine it
on the table. For health and other reasons (dogs don't break the
stack while you examine the bite, it's easier for inexperienced
dogs, takes less time for restacking the dogs, etc.).

I know Kymm -- she has lovely Danes, is a very well respected
breeder/exhibitor here in Minnesota and is President of the Heart of
Minnesota Great Dane club. Marlies Noll

"As Jeff and I start the process of putting together the shattered
pieces of our world, I am compelled to send out the word to as many
people as possible that the reason Charlotte died was so
unnecessary and senseless. At the very beginning of symptoms of her
having what appeared to be kennel cough, I contacted as many people
as I knew that were at the Fargo shows to let them know
Charlotte was showing symptoms and to be watchful. Since I sent
that email, the number of people who have either contacted me
directly or I have heard of through the dog-show community is
increasing - daily. Stories of LOTS of sick dogs are coming
from vendors who have booths at the shows. It looks like we have a
real health crisis going on right now with is and we all need to
take extreme measures to try and protect our dogs! There
is always a chance our dogs are going to pick up a bug at a show…
that is a given, but we all need to make sure we are not adding to
the problem by being careless.

One dog too many has needlessly died¦

If a 2 year old perfectly healthy dog can contract kennel cough and
die from secondary infection because of it, then no dog is
protected from this! I am convinced that we need
to take a stand and require judges examining our dogs to PLEASE let
us show them the dog's bite! If the judge is opening your dog's
mouth, all the dogs that judge has seen previous that day are being
exposed to YOUR dog!

After seeing Charlotte's lifeless body, I made a promise to my
beautiful girl that I am going to make it my mission to do whatever
I can to compel the AKC to make it MANDATORY that judges require
the handlers to show bites! I am going to start a campaign of
contacting every kennel club I can to ask them include mandatory
requirements in their contracts that judges do not open the mouths
of dogs they judge. I hope that everyone reading this will do
whatever they can to support my efforts. I can plant the seed, but
this effort will require the loud vocal support of as many
exhibitors as possible for the AKC and the hosting clubs to pay
attention and take action!

I must urge everyone to be cautious at EVERY show they attend â€"
especially now when we know our dogs are being exposed to
potentially life threatening diseases!

If your dog is showing symptoms please DO NOT bring them to a show.
I have been told that the virus can be spread up to 10 days AFTER
an affected dog is no longer showing symptoms! It isn't just the
dogs in competition that are being exposed, but every dog in
our homes/kennels when we bring our show dog back from the ring.
As much as we love having our dogs be ambassadors to spectators
ringside, we must also now be aware that people who want to pet our
dogs could be spreading the virus as well.

So maybe we need to ask these people to either disinfect their
hands before they touch our dogs, or just admire our dogs without
touching them at all. Isn't it horrible we must
even CONSIDER having to do that!

I urge everyone to take great care and take an extra effort to
protect the dogs you are showing! Please don't let what happened to
our sweet girl happen to one of your dogs!

Kymm Cowley
Kemac Great Danes.
In loving memory of Charlotte."

[alimel]

Wow! I hope her campaign works. This is so sad.

[Dauxside]

My heart breaks for her - IMHO AKC needs to stop judges from examining without washing their hands between dogs. Even a little Purell instead of just going one dog to another. I've always hated that.

[alimel]

Of course, it would be like our doctors looking in our mouths and not washing their hands after each patient!

[Dauxside]

Totally agree Alimel - and we show people should be ready to hand our judges a bottle of Purell when in the ring. I know I will.

[BabyElephant]

Daux that's really sad... as you know Poppy had KC with a secondary infection which took 3 lots of AB's & weeks to clear up. TBH I don't think that simply washing hands would be good enough, my vet told me that it can travel on clothes and be picked up from the environment etc. Apparently most dogs are contagious even before they show the symptoms...

We seem to be having an outbreak of KC over here ATM, on the Lab forum I seem to be posting daily the video of Poppy with KC as most members have never seen a dog with KC and are unsure as to what to look for.

[Dauxside]

BE you're right of course - KC just like Parvo and other disease can travel on clothing, be coughed out onto the grass. Just makes me crazy that there are those lunatics who won't pull a dog when they have some disease going around in their area.

[Dobified]

That is truly sad. I have not known a dog to die of this yet.. TG