The offer is available until December 31st, 2008. You may register and pay now, then send in
the sample after that date. Optigen does not send out test kits. Cheek swabs may be purchased at your pharmacy or obtained from your veterinarian.

Faith Beiser

Faith Beiser

in PDF format below.

• 2008 National and Regional Specialty Winners
• 2008 National and Regional Veteran Sweeps Winners
• 2008 National and Regional Puppy Sweeps Winners

Congratulations to all the winners and exhibitors!

STCA Events

… or you can link directly to the Adobe PDF documents below.

2008 STCA National Specialty Schedule of Events

Available for download below is the new National Specialty Judge Selection Procedure and Judge Selection form. The mail in deadline is Oct 10^th, 2008 and hand delivery must be done by the day before the General Membership meeting.

National Specialty Judge Selection Procedure

Judge Selection Form

There have been a few recent changes (corrections) and additions to the activities at the specialty that I want to update you about – please forward to anyone on the list who might have entered or is considering entering.

• Agility is offered both MONDAY and TUESDAY – the entry form sent by Onofrio is wrong and is corrected on their site
• Veteran Obedience and Brace Obedience will be offered on Tues (one day only) after the regular obedience judging – Veterans entry is $20 and Brace is $18
• There will be hospitality at the host hotel on Monday night – refreshments and drinks – I’m going to try to run the awards powerpoint presentation there also There is awards dinner (FREE – but please RSVP) on Tues night at 6pm at the Hawthorne Inn (5min from the showsite) – bar available – we will have the official awards presentation there and also at the Sat night banquet – I hope to see you all there.
• If you are an STCA member and your dog meets criteria to receive an award I will still accept your information for this year – the forms are on the Performance section of the STCA web site

I think that’s it for now – entries close on Oct 1st, so I hope to see as many of you as possible at the specialty!

Denise Wedel

Our scheduled sweepstakes judge has had a personal issue come up, and will be unable to judge for us at this years National. A good friend to our breed, Mr. Rade Dakic Kica (Serbia) will now be judging the National Sweepstakes classes in her stead (pending AKC Approval). A Special Thank you goes out to Kica for stepping up to help with such short notice.

See you all in October!

Lydia Castagna - 2008 National Show Chair

All,

Dr. Natasha Olby will be our guest speaker at the 2008 National Specialty banquet, on Sat.Oct. 25. She will discuss the recent development of the genetic test for cerebellar ataxia in Am Staffs, the process of making it available in the USA, and she will answer questions pertaining to the disease and the testing process.

Thanks,

Faith Beiser

I do have some more information I can share with you all about this test. The burning questions people are asking are “How good is the test?” and “Will it become available in the US?”

Taking the first question first - How good is the test? Scientific work is evaluated when data is submitted in a manuscript for publication by a journal. Following submission, the journal editors send the manuscript to external reviewers who read it and give their opinion on its value. The editors’ decision on whether to publish the work is based on these reviews and once published, of course everyone can read it and judge for themselves. This has not yet taken place for this work but will in the near future. Until that time the French group have asked me not to reveal specifics of the research, and it is fair to say that the external review process has not yet occurred. However, there are a few things I can say. Firstly, working independently, both my group and the French group identified the same chromosomal region, and narrowed the disease down to the same handful of genes. It seems unlikely that two separate research groups would reach that same point if the research was incorrect. Secondly, the data they have shared with me suggests the test is very sensitive and specific.

The second question is very pertinent to you all - (Will a test become available in the US?) and the answer to that question is yes, it is possible that the test will become available right here in the US. When I get more specific information on this I will pass it on. In the meantime, be aware that Labrador breeders use the same lab, Antagene, to test for a myopathy (the mutation was identified in France) with no problems.

Natasha Olby