2019 National Specialty Health Clinics

Angela Hanson SCOA Health Committee Chair

Every health clinic held is always a success whether 10 tests get completed or 100. Health testing for our breed is important. The more we test the more knowledge we gain to make informed decisions about our beloved Spinoni.

This year’s National Specialty Health Clinic was no exception. We had 14 Heart auscultation exams done with Dr. Christian Weder of Petcardia, 22 Eye exams completed with Dr. Kathryn Wotman from Colorado State University and 31 total blood draw exams (13 CHIC DNA, 14 Hemopet Thyroid, 4 Hemopet Titres) by Dr. Elayne Williams from Fort Collins, CO. Was so wonderful to see so many health exams completed, especially thyroid testing as we know this can affect so many organ systems in our breed.

Since there is so much recent focus on tick vector disease, we decided to offer for the first time this year various tick bourne titre testing (Lyme, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, Erlichia, Babeiosis). Unfortunately, we did not have any participants and we may remove this offering for future health clinics and allow those who wish to pursue these titres to consult with their Vets.

This year we implemented an online pre-registration process using Sign Up Genius. This was a fantastic resource suggested, developed and managed by Julia Solomon. Due to the success of using this tool to keep everyone organized and on time for their appointments, we will be continuing use of this. Thank you Julia!!!

When it comes to organizing the health clinics we are at the specialist’s mercy for days/times available and it really requires extreme juggling from the Specialty Chair and Committee to meet the restrictions. We were so very fortunate that Dr. Weder and Dr. Wotman were so very flexible to juggle their own office hours to accommodate a mid-week afternoon Spinone Health Clinic. Thank you Christian and Kathryn for helping to make this health clinic a success.

Dr. Elayne Williams stepped in at the last minute to help us out with the blood draws and we are so very grateful. It is a really big job to make sure that all the parts come together in sending off blood samples to ensure diagnostic results for the participants. It could not have come together without the amazing knowledge and assistance of Heather Jenner, RVT and Adriene Ferreira, RVT. These 3 professionals kept the blood draws flowing (pardon the pun) and allowed everyone to get their tests completed and organized. We could not have done this without them. Thank you Elayne, Heather and Adriene for volunteering your day to support the health clinics. We also would like to thank Karen Stalk at Hemopet Lab for helping to organize our lab forms, supplies and shipping boxes. Karen certainly took the worry out of ensuring that we kept the integrity of the samples and delivered them properly.

Thank you Val Lewis for your help to man the registration table and keep participants going in the right direction as the day was pretty steady.

Thank you to Debby Forry and the Specialty Committee for getting us set up with everything that we needed.

To my illustrious partner Julia Solomon who was the organization behind the scenes, Thank you for all that you did for months prior to that week. Everyone needs to know, this would not have been a reality if not for you <3