Down here in Mid East Alabama, the weather hasn't put me in the mood for it. 90+* days, no rain and all.
Just the essentials. Vest, shells, hat, boots and chaps for Saturday's opening day of rabbit season.
I know I told you I got new boots but these are just so.....And besides, like I said, there hasn't been any rain.
Oh yeah. And my gun.
Brag, my regular rabbit hunting partner, Uncle NoPass's grandson, said he wasn't even toting a gun tomorow. If I bother to kill a rabbit, Lucy will be running it.

( a short note to djmed. I got a little long winded and it turned into a decent post. djmed is a good ol boy over past Opelika and turned up in the Rabbit Journal 03-04 in a post dated, 22 February 2004 and titled @%^& Dogs!)

We have a lot more at Seale this year than the last two. We've ran two rabbits at ten different places on the thousand acres. Not much coyote sign, either. But we will only get about five good hunts there. Probably some mid day Saturday kinda hunts in December and January. Maybe even November. Definitely October. Meet there at 10-10:30 after the deer hunters get off their stands. I have a scale I use to rate the hunts and pre-season stuff.
It’s Wow, really good, good, average, poor, piss poor and “well, we got to go somewhere”.
Seale is a “Well, we got to go somewhere”

Cuz visited some of the members having a plowing/seed planting gathering and that night told them he didn't want to hear a word about us rabbit hunting. That we wouldn't be down till after ten and we would leave early. Anybody that wasn't happy could find them another club. Good thing, Cuz holds the lease. Lets see, been about 35 years now. He got a special deal from the Bradley Company back .....

And there are a couple of important things that are to be noted.

One is:
Dr. Ed Dubovi
"So what about the implications for public health? We must keep in mind that this H3N8 equine influenza virus has been in horses for over 40 years. In all these years, we have never been able to document and single case of human infection with this virus. So that is something that I want everybody to take note of so to dispel, you know, major panic. That's not to say that there isn't any risk. We are going to monitor all cases of possible human exposure, but, this point, there is no reason to panic."

Next is mortality
" But in those dogs where the cause of death was verified by diagnostic testing, we are looking at on the order of five to eight percent."
Well, we have, according to one source, 62.4 million owned dogs. At 5%, the lowest estimated death rate, we would have 3.12 million owned dog deaths. Please note that this is only a very worst case senario that assumes that EVERY dog becomes infected, a very unlikely possibility.

Then
"And I wanted to reiterate what Dr. Donis said earlier in the call; that H3N8 has never infected humans; and that we will certainly monitor human exposure and we'll work closely with our key partners here to coordinate any messages to monitor this emerging pathogen."
My smart mouth chimes in with "It hadn't infected dogs ever, till recently.

and finally
" It may actually pose even a lesser risk for humans. So the bottom line is we don't know and the bottom line we'll investigate but basically there will be a surveillance plan and we will be following up the reports and investigate with our partners in the veterinary science and veterinary colleges, and we're taking it seriously but at this point there is no reason for alarm."

I'm not sure if I feel comforted or not. They are pretty cautious, seem to indicate that it's a mild disease, but a mortality of 5-8% and don't know the rate of spread or where.

If you read it, let me know your opinions.

Previous posts

Rabbit Season starts this Saturday though the weather doesn’t match the season or my mood. I’m still in fishing mode while some of my Georgia friends have been primitive weapon hunting for four weeks or so. No. lol. Not now, djmed. I’m saving my annual primitive weapon rant for a couple more weeks .
I’m just not in the killing mood….yet.
Maybe it’s the thought of sitting in a tree, 94*, mosquitoes and no see’ums raising welts on my exposed sweaty flesh and actually killing a deer.
Then I have to find him. You know, with a bow, he heads into the next bottom with the steepest slope and the meanest briars before falling. Gut him, Drag him, Process him. No, there’s plenty of time for that yet when the weather cools down and I have a kid along.

What got me on this subject tonight is that I was getting my rabbit hunting gear together. The 16ga 1929 Fox double barrel is safely in the gun safe. If you want it, you going to have to work for it.

Wasn’t much packing involved. The soft $5 camo packback that I bought a few years ago at some clearance sale had all of last years gear still in place.

I took Lucy's training collar off today and gave her one of the extra leathers that Brag and I have. She'll wear that one till I get a new blaze orange collar with a new nameplate/phone#/email addy. The training collar was a cheap red fabric Chihuahua collar that she had finally outgrew.

She does have a few quirks. She loves to drink out of the hosepipe and enjoys being sprayed down.

The dog health care correspondent for both redneckin and The Rabbit Journal 05-06 sent me a urgent email concerning Canine Influenza Virus last Sunday which slipped through the cracks of my recent trip.

Update:21 September 2005
"PLEASE DO NOT PANIC, and do NOT assume that every cough is Canine Influenza. Kennel Cough from parainfluenza and Bordetella is more common. However, the Animal Health Diagnostic Center at Cornell is interested in receiving samples from dogs that appear to have kennel cough.

Clinical Signs: Since this is a new pathogen in dogs, there is currently no natural immunity present in the unexposed canine population. Almost all exposed dogs will become infected, and nearly 80% have clinical signs. In the mild form the dogs will have a cough that persists for 10 to 21 days. The cough may be soft and moist or dry. Many dogs will have a nasal discharge from a secondary bacterial infection and low grade fever. The nasal discharge responds to broad spectrum antibiotics.
In the severe form with pneumonia there is a high fever (104-106 F) and respiratory difficulties. X-rays may show consolidation. These dogs often have secondary bacterial infections and have responded to broad-spectrum antibiotics and supportive care including intravenous hydration.

The incubation period is two to five days and dogs may shed virus for seven to 10 days. The disease can spread rapidly throughout a boarding kennel. Dogs that are coughing SHOULD NOT BE BROUGHT TO SHOWS or Performance EVENTS.

From NYS Department of Agriculture and Markets and the Animal Health Diagnostic Center at Cornell."

I heard part of it this morning on a local talkshow where the host blew her off. In all fairness, I don’t think the host realized the implications of how serious this can be for both dogs and the owners. I would regard this more in the realm of a public health notice for companion animals with implications for humans than a standard political press release. Especially serious for the dogs since, as noted, the species to species jump,

“We have a huge problem, domestic dogs are now contracting the new flu. It is making species leaps which has great implications for humans. It was in the bird population and went from there to horses via the mosquito. Raw horse meat that was infected with horse influenza was fed to greyhounds, so it had some serious help making that species leap.”

Add to that that there are about 62.4 million owned dogs in the U.S. Right now our concern is for the dogs (remember I keep hunting dogs), but

The one big worry about the bird flu is if it makes a species to species jump into humans we could have a human pandemic that would dwarf the influenza pandemic of 1918. “The influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 killed more people than the Great War, known today as World War I (WWI), at somewhere between 20 and 40 million people.” Could this flu make such a transition? No one knows if or what the effects would be if it made the transition to humans. Most are relatively mild, but ocassionally...........

The emailer continues

Maizie, Dixie, Julie and even Lucy got their monthly heartworm pill, Interceptor, today.

pre-season exercise with Julie, Dixie, Maizie and little Lucy at our hunting lease near Seale, Alabama.
In the meantime, I'm leaving a picture on the item page of a design that our club is thinking of using on our club t'shirt

injection of canine distemper-hepatitis-parainfluenza-parvovirus vaccine today.
Next is a trip to the Vet for a rabies shot. It used to be you could give them yourself, but the Veterinarian Full Employment Bill ended that.

For those who are new to the Rabbit Journal, Saturday is the day that Brag and I exercise our rabbit dogs, Dixie, Julie, Maizie and the newest addition to our pack, sixteen week old Lucy. Brag is Uncle NoPass's grandson and we run them most Saturday's on a pine plantation where Cuz has a hunting lease near Seale, Alabama.

The rabbit season will open on 1 October but doesn't get into full swing until Feb. due to the selfish, overbearing deer hunters who being pretty ignorant about a deer's reaction to rabbit dogs and don't want anybody on their property during deer season. Heck, most of them don't want you on the property after deer season, but there are a few who open their land to us.