We all share in the sad loss of long-time member Brenda Martz. Brenda was a loyal member of CKCSCGA for decades, serving as an active and engaged member and also as a member of the board. There is no one who better represented our lovely breed than Brenda Martz. No one has done more to improve our beautiful breed than she. Brenda was a loved daughter, sister, wife, mother, and grandmother. We all knew Brenda as a friend and many of us as a mentor. Brenda will be greatly missed by all who knew and loved her.

On May 11th there will be a regular meeting and also a board meeting. The board meeting will begin at 6 pm followed by the regular meeting at 7:30 pm. Call-in details will be emailed to members prior to the meeting.

If you have an agenda item for the meeting, please email club president Linda Whitmire at almearacavaliers@gmail.com

Join us all at club member Linda Whitmire’s house for an outside gathering (socially distanced of course) on Sunday, May 2nd from 1 pm to 4 pm. It’s just time to sit down and see each other in person again! Bring you cavaliers, young or old. Also, bring a chair, mask, hand sanitizer, water bowl for your pup, and crate or xpen for them to relax in. Bring a light snack to share! It’s all about just getting together to reconnect!

Alice Alford will be there to test for AKC CGC and Trick Dog and Kay Trad and Gwyneth will be there to demonstrate Trick Dog.

Be sure to RSVP to the Evite invitation that was sent out this week.

I am reposting this very important article. The danger to our dogs from eating Cicadas and their shells can not be overstated. I read an article this past week that stated that there will be billions of them when they dig themselves from their 17 years hibernation this year.

By Harriet Meyers

Mar 04, 2021

Key Points

• After a 17-year hibernation, trillions of cicadas are due to emerge in parts of the U.S.
• Cicada exoskeletons are difficult to digest and can cause dogs to suffer serious consequences if eaten.

Sometime this spring, when the soil temperature reaches 64 degrees, your dog may suddenly start digging up the yard. He can hear something you can’t yet hear – juvenile cicadas tunneling through the ground getting ready to emerge.

Most of the more than 3,000 types of cicadas appear every 2-to-5 years, and their cycles can vary. But the periodical cicadas spend exactly 13 or 17 years underground, and when they appear – trillions surface, blanketing the ground, cars, trees, and houses. According to entomologists, densities can be as great as 1.5 million cicadas per acre.

This time the big brood is coming. After a 17-year hibernation, trillions of cicadas are due to emerge in Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and Washington, D.C.

Cicadas Can Cause Stomach Upset

Cicadas don’t bite or sting, so no problem – right? Wrong. If you have a dog who likes to munch on whatever can be found on the ground, you need to prepare to stop him from devouring this plentiful treat.

“In most cases, your dog will be fine after eating a few cicadas,” says Dr. Jerry Klein, AKC chief veterinary officer. “However, dogs that gorge on the large, crunchy insects will find the exoskeleton difficult to digest and can suffer serious consequences.”

According to Dr. Klein, aftereffects can include severe stomach upset and abdominal pain, vomiting, and bloody diarrhea. Some dogs may require intravenous fluids, pain medications, gastro protectants, or anti-nausea drugs.

Dogs Overindulging in Cicadas Can:

• Experience mild to serious GI upset.
• Choke on the stiff wings or hard exoskeleton.
• Suffer an allergic reaction.
• Consume unhealthy amounts of pesticides.

How Long Will the Threat Last?

Cicadas live underground for most of their lives, where they drink from plant roots and develop into adults. They emerge from the ground to sing, mate, and lay eggs. The songs, sung mostly by males, can reach 100 decibels. Females lay fertilized eggs in the branches of plants, where they hatch and burrow underground. The adult cicadas die, and the world becomes a little bit quieter.

The cicada cycle will last about 6 weeks, so those emerging in mid-May should be gone by late June, depending on the weather. Then the babies or nymphs will dig into the ground to suck tree roots for another 17 years.

Of course, those tasty exoskeletons that adult cicadas shed will still be all over the ground. So you’ll need to be vigilant with your dog for a while longer.

Bottom line: Preventing your dog from eating cicadas is the safest choice. Get ahead of the game and teach the "leave it" command. And if you have a pup who likes to act like an anteater, you may need to be constant companions when he goes outside for a couple of months.

Whelping - Oxytocin versus Calcium

Susan Patterson

Whelping - Proper use of Oxytocin versus Calcium

by Myra Savant Harris and Susan Patterson

OXYTOCIN

Most vets want to base the oxy dose on weight (which is never done with humans; it is not weight regulated) then that 0.1 ccs per 10 pounds of body weight turns into 2 ccs for a 200 pound Mastiff. When you take into account that it would only take about 0.3-0.4 ccs (mixed one cc per 1000 liters of IV fluids, run through an IVAC pump) dripped over 24 hours or so to get from induction to delivery on a 200-pound woman!

I still think that it is used much too generously in vet medicine and it is generally given as a bolus injection. And, the worst part is that it is not uniformly dosed. We all follow the exact same protocol for the administration of oxytocin, but vets do not. A clumber breeder's vet gave her prefilled syringes with 1 cc of oxy in each. She used four of them. Five of her nine puppies were born dead, a very predictable outcome. The other thing that bothers me about using it in the canine is that it is simply never....and I do mean never....used on a human unless she is being monitored and I don't mean listening to the fetal heart tones with a doppler. Monitoring means nothing unless you use both uterine monitoring and fetal heart monitoring because the only component of fetal monitoring that is diagnostic is what the fetal heart (actually the brain as I'm sure you know) does during and immediately after a contraction. It is the correlation between the contraction and the fetal heart rate that is diagnostic for fetal distress and there is no substitute. I still firmly believe that oxytocin has no place in-home use. As a clean-out shot, perhaps if there are definitely no puppies left to kill, but used to change the quality or quantity of the contractions...Never.

O for Oxytocin

written by Myra Savant Harris - 8/9/2012

I found this article about the damaging effects of Oxytocin, a drug routinely used in hospital labor/delivery departments by obstetricians for inductions and augmentation of labor. It was so well researched that I felt it must be shared with dog breeders everywhere. It covers the use of oxytocin and its many dangerous side effects. Oxytocin is specifically only approved by the FDA when medically indicated. This means that there must be a medical reason why the baby must be delivered right now rather than letting mom go into labor on her own. It is not safe to use for elective inductions according to the FDA. Most of the information here was taken from the article but changed into canine terms because it was originally an article about human use of Oxytocin. The same principles apply. Here is the link to the entire article:

http://www.birthroutes.com/2010/05/pitocin-not-approved-by-the-fda-for-elective-or-nonmedical-inductions-.html

Oxytocin crosses the placenta and enters the blood and brain of the fetus within seconds or minutes. There appears to be a correlation between fetal exposure to oxytocin and autism in the exposed offspring. The manufacturer of oxytocin warns the provider in the package insert:

Maternal deaths due to hypertensive episodes, subarachnoid hemorrhage, rupture of the uterus, fetal deaths and permanent brain damage of the baby due to various causes have been reported to be associated with the use of oxytocin for induction of labor or for augmentation of labor. Because oxytocin is used so commonly to stimulate and augment labor it is important that each dog breeder who uses it has a full understanding of its potential dangers:

• maternal hypertensive episodes (abnormally high blood pressure)
• subarachnoid hemorrhage (bleeding in the area surrounding the spinal cord)
• anaphylactic reaction (exaggerated allergic reaction)
• postpartum hemorrhage (uterine hemorrhage following birth)
• cardiac arrhythmias (non-normal heart rate)
• fatal afibrinogenemia (loss of blood clotting fibrin)
• premature ventricular contraction (non-normal heart function)
• pelvic hematoma (blood clot in the pelvic region)
• uterine hypertonicity (excessive uterine muscle tone)
• uterine spasm (violent, distorted contraction of the uterus)
• tetanic contractions (spasmodic uterine contractions)
• uterine rupture
• increased blood loss
• convulsions (violent, involuntary muscle contraction(s)
• coma (unconsciousness that cannot be aroused)
• fatal oxytocin-induced water intoxication (undue retention of water marked by vomiting, depression of temperature, convulsions, and coma and may end in death

Fetal and Newborn Effects of Oxytocin Use

The following adverse effects of maternally administered oxytocin have been reported in the baby:

• bradycardia (slow fetal heart rate)
• premature ventricular contractions and other arrhythmias (abnormal heart function)
• neonatal retinal hemorrhage leading to blindness
• permanent central nervous system or brain damage
• fetal death

Uterine stimulants which shorten the oxygen-replenishing intervals between contractions, by making the contractions too long, too strong, or too close together, increase the likelihood that fetal brain cells will die. The situation is analogous to holding an infant under the surface of the water, allowing the infant to come to the surface to gasp for air, but not to breathe. All of these effects increase the possibility of neurologic insult to the fetus. No one really knows how often these adverse effects occur, because there is no law or regulation in any country which requires the doctor to report an adverse drug reaction to the FDA.

The entire birth experience in the canine world has seemingly lost contact with the importance of the natural rhythms of birth and how vitally they are connected to the natural daily rhythms of life. Being born without medical interference and drugs gives all mammals an important imprint for life. Navigating through birth, both drug and intervention-free, provides the young of the species with these important imprints; birth is a very important transition that sets babies of all species up for life. In a normal, natural labor the contractions build, increasing in intensity, they go up and peak, and then they come down the other side. There is a natural space in between each contraction in which both mom and baby can rest and gather their strength for the next wave. When oxytocin is administered this natural cycle is lost, and contractions are unrelenting, one after the other, with no rest. This is what makes it both more painful for the birthing mom and traumatic for her babies. Please consider an oxytocin free birth experience for your bitches. You won’t be sorry you did.

CALCIUM

Calcium given prior to whelping can fool the parathyroid gland into not doing its job, which is to release the body's calcium during whelping. Many people put their bitch on puppy food or use a food with a high calcium-phosphorus ratio and they are simply not aware of the impact. Or they supplement or unintentionally feed extra calcium-rich foods. Know what your food calcium-phosphorus ratio is, the closer to 1:1 the better, check it out here http://starsenchihuahuas.com/information.html

Calcium during whelping - Proper use of calcium during whelping allows the body to work with itself to maximize contractions without putting the puppy at risk. Calcium works with the calcium released by the parathyroid to increase contractions without premature placental detachment. You can use OralCal Plus, Tums, Citrical Tablets, or other calcium supplements that you purchase for human consumption.

I have also had good success with getting calcium into my girls by offering them premium vanilla ice cream, yogurt, cottage cheese, or Mother's Pudding (see recipe elsewhere in Files). The advantage of using both ice cream and Mother's Pudding is that it also gives the bitch extra glucose (energy) to feed the muscles during contraction. If I cannot get glucose into them that way then I syringe a sugar/Pedialyte mixture after each calcium dose. The calcium and the glucose work together to help the body efficiently go through labor and whelping, maximizing muscle contractions for efficient productive pushing.

Additionally, you can help stimulate whelping by having nipple stimulation with puppies nursing, walking, and vaginal feathering all work to help the bitch in safe and efficient ways.

Jim & Sharon Utych are bragging on GCH CH Legendcrest Finnickyskye Dream Catcher who has had a great showing at the Lake Lanier cluster shows. Catch was awarded Select Dog and Best of Opposite along with BOBOH during the weekend. Catcher is currently the number 2 owner-handled cavalier in the AKC NOHS rankings.

The newsletter is only as good as the information shared with the editor. Please be generous with the sharing of your brags and any additional information you would like to see in the newsletter. That information can be sent to me at Fitchpatrick@Earthlink.net.