Canine Brucellosis outbreak in Texas transported to La - Page 3

As far as breeding goes, YES, any "responsible" breeder has their dogs tested for Brucellosis BEFORE breeding, but guess what, a "negative" does not necessarily mean the dog is NOT infected. The incubation period can range from a few days to a few months.  Lets say you get a 2 year old female, who test "negative" when you get her. You then breed her to your champion male (who also tested negative). 2 months later, your female delivers a litter of dead puppies, so she is tested again. This time, bam...positive, and the last 2 months, she and your champion male have also infected every other dog they have come in contact with.

Now imagine if you have a champion male you use as a stud, not only to your breeding program, but time to time others that you "know" and trust. You breed him to a female who has just tested negative (but is really infected). Your champion stud is now infected and you have no idea, since you were shown that "negative" from the female. For the next six months you decide to only use him in your own breeding program. Since you know, (or think you know) he is negative (you were shown that negative test, right?) you breed him to all of your females (who were also tested as negative).

Until you are faced with this nightmare, you really have no idea how horrible it really is.

 Here is a really good article that I encourage you to share with every dog owner you know, especially breeders. It has basically all the same information as any other article on Brucellosis, but written in a more down to earth format.

http://www.euksport.com/sportingDog/en_US/jsp/library/SD_ALDP.jsp?article=Canine_Brucellosis

Sorry for taking up so much space on your forum, but I feel this is a very important issue people need to be fully aware of.

Thank you!

I am sorry you had to go thru what you did with your dogs. Thank you for the information and link.

I recently had a client that had a male dog, it was dripping nasty green and as always I brought it to the attention of the owner. She asked what might cause it and I told her numerous things and started listing some. We then got on the discussion of breeding ( the dog was a shihtzu she planned to sud out) and told her she needed to be sure to have any females considered for breeding tested for brucelossis as well as having her dog tested. She went home and within hours there was someone posting on our local town message board blasting me out of the water for mentioning brucelosis saying that the vets had said it was extinct and had no affect on people whatsoever and basically trashing my reputation for even suggesting that it be tested for before breeding, I am not a vet, what right do I have to tell someone that there is a disease that might be contagious to their dog or others that should be tested for etc etc. lol right then and there I stopped teling clients anything except the usual, your dog has some irritation in his ears you might want to get checked out etc.

        Here are a few web sites I found with tons of information on Canine Brucellosis.  I want you to know this is not a shut your eyes it will go away disease, it is here to stay as long as we have people like these puppy mill owners that can not or will not be stopped or put out of business.     http://www.nowisconsinpuppymills.com/brucellosis.pdf   http://www.ivis.org/advances/Infect_Dis_Carmichael/shin/ivis.pdf   http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/diseaseinfo/brucellosis_g.htm   http://www.nowisconsinpuppymills.com/thorpauction-brucellosis.html   http://www.italian-greyhound.net/brucellosis.htm   http://www.marvistavet.com/html/brucellosis_in_dogs.html   http://www.idph.state.ia.us/adper/common/pdf/epifacts/brucellosishp.pdf    I hope you go to each and everyone of these sites.  I am a small time hobby breeder with only 10 breeder dogs, but when I heard of this and read this information I contacted my vet and set up appointments to have all my dogs tested.  I was one of the lucky ones, even though I had purchased dogs all over the US, not knowing of this disease and not asking if they had been tested for it, all my dogs were negative thank God.  But I could just as easily have purchased an infected dog like these ladies did because of lack of information of this disease.  I think a new law concerning this deadly disease needs attention.  I don't know how but it needs addressing.   Not just for Texas or Louisiana but all states.