According to the January 1999 edition of Veterinary Economics, “Dr. Richard Fayrer-Hosken, an associate professor at the University of Georgia College of Veterinary Medicine, has developed Spay-Safe, an injectible contraceptive made from a natural protein found in pig ovaries. Three shots permanently sterilize a dog without any known side effects. Spay-Safe is undergoing FDA evaluation, and the university has licensed a company to market it pending approval. Now Dr. Fayrer-Hosken is developing a dosage for cats.” Fayrer-Hosken did not answer inquiries from ANIMAL PEOPLE, however, and other information reaching us indicates that the University of Georgia may be involved in litigation with the Humane Society of the U.S., which apparently funded some of the research, over ownership of the marketing rights.
Prairie dog rescuers in Boulder, Colorado, hoped to relocate an estimated 3,000 prairie dogs from a building site to a 1,280-acre site purchased by the Southern Plains Land Trust––but when neighboring ranchers objected, and state representative Mark Hillman introduced a bill to forbid importing “destructive rodent pests” into any county without the approval of the county commissioners, the Colorado Division of Wildlife on January 27 imposed a moratorium on prairie dog relocations pending establishment of a state relocation policy. Then, as if the rescuers needed more bad news, the online bulletin board ProMED distributed a report that two Boulder prairie dog relocators who fell ill last August with suspected fungal pneumonia had contracted blastomycosis, caused by inhaling the spores of a fungus found in soil and rotting wood. They apparently were exposed while digging up prairie dog burrows.
Emulating Texas A&M University, whose Stevenson Animal Companion Life-Care Center opened in March 1993, Oklahoma State University at Stillwater will in April open the Cohn Family Shelter for Small Animals. The Stevenson Center provides quality care-for-life for companion animals of the deceased at $25,000 per dog or cat, $50,000 per horse. The Cohn Family Shelter will charge $15,000 per cat, $25,000 per dog. Quality care-for-life programs run by humane societies typically charge $5,000-$10,000 per animal.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers Jeffrey Sacks, MD, and Kyran Quinlan, MD, estimate that the 4.5 million dog bites suffered in the U.S. each year, as determined by a 1998 University of Pittsburgh study, cost about $165 million in direct medical care, and about $85 million in hidden costs such as lost work time. The University of Pittsburgh study found that 334,000 U.S. dogbite victims visit hospital emergency rooms each year; Sacks and Quinlan found that among the 6,000 victims who are kept overnight, the average stay is 3.6 days. Their estimates were based on a survey of 904 hospitals located in 17 states. An average of 17 Americans per year are killed in dog attacks––but recent totals have been much higher. Companion animal demographer Robert L. Plumb of Chico, California, estimates from available data on bite frequency vs. breed popularity that during the course of a year one dog in 55 bites someone seriously. Serious bites, Plumb estimates, are inflicted by one purebred in 30; one terrier in 433, exclusive of pit bulls and closely related breeds; one Doberman in 296; one spaniel in 174; one German shepherd in 156; and one pit bull in 16. The ANIMAL PEOPLE log of life-threatening attacks in the U.S. and Canada by owned pet dogs, kept since 1982, shows 711 total through February 14, 1999–– 322 by pit bulls, 154 by Rottweilers, 48 by wolf hybrids, 29 by German shepherds, 18 by chows, and 16 by Akitas. No other breeds account for more than ten.
Save Our Strays, a no-kill shelter founded in 1996 by Lisa and Roy Haynes of Huntington, Vermont, neutered and placed more than 300 cats, dogs, rabbits, and other stray or abandoned animals during 1998, mostly via the PETsMART franchise in nearby Williston––and was rewarded with a PETsMART Charities matching grant of $12,000 toward the purchase of a mobile adoption van. Also in Williston: Peggy Larson, DVM, a pioneer of the use of a mobile neutering clinic to serve rural regions.
The Associated Humane Societies, operating four shelters and the Popcorn Park Zoo for rescued exotic animals in northern New Jersey, on February 1 announced it had arranged the donation of 109 specially made bulletproof vests to dogs used by New Jersey law enforcement agencies. Fundraising to buy the vests began in June 1998, in memory of the Monmouth County Sheriff’s Department German shepherd Solo, who was killed by a fugitive from justice a few days earlier. Associated Humane assistant director said the fundraising effort would continue until all 300 police dogs in the state are protected. The vests cost $300 each.