Gundog Nation
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Gundog Nation #022: Rachel Busselman: Chagas Disease and Prevention in Gundogs
A deadly parasite spread by kissing bugs is silently attacking hunting dogs across America, and most owners have no idea their dogs are at risk until it's too late. In this eye-opening conversation, Kenneth Witt welcomes Rachel Busselman, a fourth-year veterinary student who earned her PhD researching Chagas disease at Texas A&M University.
Rachel reveals alarming statistics from her years studying hunting kennels across Texas, where she discovered over 25% of previously healthy dogs became infected within a single year. The parasite, Trypanosoma cruzi, primarily attacks the heart and can cause sudden death without warning signs or symptoms. Most troubling is that infected dogs often appear completely healthy until they suffer cardiac failure.
"We took our dog out to run, ran great, brought him back, was grabbing the food, came back to find he had had a heart attack," Rachel shares as one kennel owner's heartbreaking experience. Unlike common parasitic infections, Chagas disease doesn't respond to standard medications, and detection requires specialized blood tests that aren't part of routine veterinary examinations.
The geographic reach of this disease extends throughout the southern United States, with highest concentrations in Texas and Louisiana, though cases have been documented as far north as Nebraska. Approximately 50% of the kissing bugs that transmit the disease carry the parasite, creating a significant threat for dogs spending time outdoors.
For dog owners, Rachel provides crucial prevention advice, including using insecticides around kennels, changing outdoor lighting to red wavelengths that don't attract the bugs, and turning off unnecessary lights at night. While researchers work toward better treatments, awareness remains the best defense. If you find kissing bugs on your property, collect them safely and submit them for testing through Texas A&M's community science program at kissingbug.tamu.edu.
Don't wait until your hunting companion becomes another statistic. Listen now to learn how to identify, prevent, and respond to this hidden threat that's endangering our gundogs.
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Hello and welcome to Gun Dog Nation. This is Kenneth Witt and I'm coming to you from Texas. I want you to know that Gun Dog Nation is more than just a podcast. It's a movement to unite those who want to watch a well-trained dog do what it's bred to do. Also, we are set out to try to encourage youth, to get encouraged in the sport of gun dogs, whether it's hunting, competition, trials, hunt tests, all the above. This is a community of people that are united to preserve our heritage of gun dog ownership and also to be better gun dog owners. So if you'll stay tuned to all of our episodes, we're going to have people on here to educate you about training, about nutrition, health. Anything can make you a better gun dog owner. It's my pleasure to welcome our listeners and please join our community.
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Speaker 1:Hello, good evening and welcome to Gun Dog Nation. We're back with a new episode. This was a really important. All dog owners, not just gun dog owners, needs to pay attention. This it's it. We always try to do a segment every so often and sometimes more often than not if the need rises about dog, you know, animal health and things that can actually, you know, harm or even, you know, be fatal to your, to your pet. So today we're going to do something that we've kind of done this before. We've actually stole people from this university before to talk to. I'm coming to. You live from the ranch in Fort McAvick, texas, and my guest is also in Texas, but I'll give her a little introduction and we'll introduce herself. Rachel has a PhD from A&M I'm going to tell you what that's in and now she's a fourth year vet student graduating in May, and she's going to talk about something that's really affecting animals all across the United States. And let's just get into that, rachel. Tell everybody who you are.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm Rachel, like I said, a fourth year vet student. I earned my PhD from Texas A&M a couple years ago in ecology and evolutionary biology, but a lot of my time was spent with hunting dogs, kind of researching this disease, chagas disease.
Speaker 1:So is it fair to say, rachel, you were actually studying this disease we're going to talk about prior to going to vet school as as a as a grad student.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was. I was introduced to the disease um in 2018 when I came down to Texas um to do my grad program.
Speaker 1:And tell her about where you're from.
Speaker 2:I'm from Nebraska, Omaha, Nebraska. Now being from, I from nebraska.
Speaker 1:I'm from omaha, nebraska now being I've been through omaha. Being from there, did you grow up hunting or farming or what's your background?
Speaker 2:yeah, I grew up in, uh, the suburbs um my dad grew up on a farm, so I grew up going to my grandparents farm, um, but no, the whole hunting culture was new to me. When I came down to Texas Nice, well, how do you think of it? So far it's been a little wild, just. I think the hunting ranches here in Texas are so much different than what I thought of as ranches in Nebraska. Just with the size and the scale of these managed properties with huge populations of hunting dogs used as working dogs, it's been really cool.
Speaker 1:And Rachel. That's a great segue. Let's dive into that, because when I talked to you on the phone, you were educating me as much as you could about this. You told me that a lot of your studies were you started at hunting ranches where there were large populations of dogs. Expand on that, please.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so a lot of the. I came kind of into a project where we had kind of a network of different hunting dog kennels. These people have between like 14 and over a hundred dogs that live on property and are used for different hunting parties by different kind of guides on these large ranches where there's managed property. They have native and exotic hoofstock that are hunted and they create these hunting experiences.
Speaker 1:And now where a lot of these dogs? I have a hunting ranch too, Rachel. I think I might have told you that, but were a lot of these dogs just blood tracking dogs for wounded game, or what all did you find? Breed wise?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it depends. One was a hound dog, like they treat cats, like they treat cats. Another would be a mix of your labs and hounds and, like your pointers, your spaniels.
Speaker 1:So some of them had a really good mix.
Speaker 2:Some were more specialized.
Speaker 1:Okay, interesting.
Speaker 2:So tell me what you did. Yeah, we specifically this project. We went around kind of over the course of a year. We wanted to see how the disease develops over time because Chagas disease can cause different symptoms, mostly heart related in dogs, dogs. But we wanted to look kind of over time, how are the hearts of dogs changing, in both dogs that are infected and the not infected and so we went and sampled blood from dogs, did like Holter monitors which monitor kind of the electrical activity of the heart.
Speaker 1:Kind of like an EKG, something Exactly yeah.
Speaker 2:We leave it on for 24 hours, so we get a really long picture of what's going on.
Speaker 1:And what did you find? What did you find in the heart rhythm of dogs that were infected, as opposed to normal dogs?
Speaker 2:Yeah, one thing that was surprising was a lot of the dogs had some sort of abnormality. Some of that is just because they're really athletic, working dogs and that's different than kind of your normal population of couch potatoes mixed with the really active dogs. But specifically we saw very subtle changes in kind of their heart electrical activity over the year. Some that were slightly different than in positive dogs, than negative dogs.
Speaker 1:Is the heart the only organ that's affected by Chagas? Did I say that correctly? Chagas?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you did so. The heart was the organ that was affected?
Speaker 1:Was there any other organs or any other problems caused by it?
Speaker 2:In dogs? No, Most of the signs we see are heart-related.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:But one thing all these dogs were asymptomatic. Owners couldn't tell anything was wrong with them.
Speaker 1:Wow. So is there a way now, when you go into just your regular vet, maybe in a small town, to detect it, to diagnose it? How do you know it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So when a dog is infected, they mount an immune response, and so we can take a blood sample and there's a test that you can have done that'll test for the antibodies to the parasite. They'll test for, like, the body's reaction to it, and once a dog's infected, they're always infected with the parasite, and so if they come up positive, then it indicates that they were exposed at some point and likely have the parasite somewhere in their body.
Speaker 1:Okay. Is this detected on a normal parasite test, like worms and stuff, heartworms and things, or no?
Speaker 2:They're all different tests, so this one, you'd have to take a blood. There's nothing easy in clinic, so they'd have to take a blood sample, send it to a diagnostic lab and then they would run a test for it.
Speaker 1:Okay, but your local vet shop is not going to pick this up. Is that fair to say?
Speaker 2:They would have to know to look for it. Okay, and we were talking like more and more people are recognizing when to look for it, especially in the Southern US, where we're seeing it a lot more commonly.
Speaker 1:Why is that? Do you think? Is it mosquitoes? What's the host or the carrier? I guess is something I should ask.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so chagas disease. The parasite is spread by a kissing bug, and these are relatively large insects they can be up to an inch long but they have to feed on blood, and so they can pick up the parasite from a mammal that's infected, and then they spread the parasite onto another animal through their feces. So, unlike a mosquito or tick, where, like when the bug bites you, you become infected, the kissing bug would have to poop, and then that poop would have to either go into the bite site or we think a lot more commonly in dogs like a bored dog will eat a bug, and since the parasite's in the bug, they can become infected that way too.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow parasites in the bug. They can become infected that way too. Oh wow, Is that why you're studying larger concentration, where dogs are in larger concentration, like at these ranches and stuff?
Speaker 2:That's a yes. That is a big reason why we're studying them there. We also found that dogs at these kennels can have a really high risk of getting disease. Dogs at these kennels can have a really high risk of getting disease. So we collected blood samples and ran those tests to test for the parasite and found over 25% of the negative dogs that we were monitoring actually became positive in that year, which was much higher than I was expecting. Wow.
Speaker 1:I guess there's that many dogs together. One dog gets it and it just spreads so easy. That way, correct? Or is that what you're seems to find?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it spreading from one dog to another dog doesn't really happen, but if there are kissing bugs there, if one dog encountered a kissing bug, then another dog in that same environment also has a high chance of.
Speaker 1:This might be a crazy question. You're going to laugh at me. Let's say, a dog's infected, yeah, and for some reason, whatever it bites another dog, can it be transmitted that way, like like, say, rabies or something?
Speaker 1:No, it can't be good okay yes, that's very good um is there, you know, like you know, like I have kennels obviously too. And then I I use bleach religiously. Matter of fact, most of my pants have huge white spots on them. I'm always bleaching. What can you do to help prevent? I assume you got to do something to get rid of those bugs, but what are you all doing to help fight off this problem, or what do? You suggest, I guess.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is a challenging disease because it's spread by kissing bugs and when we go looking in the kissing bugs, a lot of them are infected. And when we go looking in the kissing bugs, a lot of them are infected, and so the we don't have drugs that will prevent infection, and so the best way to prevent infection is to keep the bugs away. Okay, but even kennels that do an immaculate job like an excellent job at spraying insecticides, trying to manage bug populations, we can still see cases in their dogs, and so we are trying to figure out, like are there ways we can trap kissing bugs, coming up with a kissing bug trap or flee and tick prevention? We've done studies to show it kills kissing bugs, but the kissing bugs still have to feed on a treated dog, and so does it make a difference. We're looking into that and then looking into, like what drugs can we develop that would either prevent it or treat it?
Speaker 1:Do you feel like that? Those kissing bugs are attracted to larger concentrated areas of dogs, more so than just somebody's got one dog or two?
Speaker 2:Yeah, here in the United States. Another thing that makes it hard is the kissing bugs are wild and so they live off in the wilds. They're feeding on coyotes and raccoons and living their happy lives. And occasionally we find them around our homes because they, adults, fly to find blood meals or to find a mate. And we think at these larger kennels, if they're in the right space where kissing bugs are around, they provide kind of a consistent blood meal for kissing bugs. We know that kissing bugs are attracted to CO2. So, like breathing that's like the lore about how they got their name is people would wake up to bites around their face because they smell the breathing there can be attracted to different light sources and so changing lights outside of kennels to like a red wavelength or something that doesn't attract kissing bugs, People have tried.
Speaker 1:Well, you know I sit here and think, rachel, about my ranch here and I've got a hunting ranch with exotics and I have small, small amount of cattle but mostly exotic animals and dogs, so that's probably a hotbed right Livestock and dogs for attracting kissing bugs.
Speaker 2:I mean we know they're out there and we know they often live in wood rat's nests or somewhere, because the immature stages of the kissing bugs can't fly and so they have to live in an area where they are guaranteed to have some sort of food source, and luckily we don't see a lot of those in kennel environments. Those are normally out by wood rat's nests, and when you're on a hunting ranch you can't control wood rat's nests.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:So just having a lot of I don't know area that is wild. There are kissing bugs around.
Speaker 1:And you said the cases of dogs are more concentrated in the southern United States. Is it because it's warmer?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's related to where the kissing bugs live. Kissing bugs live all through Latin America, south America and then up through about midway through the United States. We have cases from Nebraska and Delaware, but they're definitely highest concentrations in Texas and Louisiana in the South.
Speaker 1:Does the infection cause react differently in different dogs, different breeds? Is it?
Speaker 2:fatal Good question, or can it?
Speaker 1:be fatal.
Speaker 2:I guess what I should ask. Yes, unfortunately, chagas disease the parasite can cause fatal infections. We see kind of a couple different phases of infection. There's the acute stage, right after an animal has been exposed to the parasite, and sometimes that parasite goes into the heart tissue and causes so much damage that we see acute death. And those are just such sad stories from kennel owners saying like we took our dog out to run, uh, ran great, brought him back, was grabbing the food, came back to find he had had a heart attack, um, and diagnosed with chagas disease all in the heart. But other dogs get out of that phase just fine and kind of enter a chronic stage where some of them will go on to develop heart problems related to the damage the parasite does. Others will go on and never show any signs.
Speaker 1:Do you have numbers on how many deaths a year occur in the United States from this disease or this infection?
Speaker 2:I wish we did. That is somewhere that we still have room to grow in what we know. Like we look at these kennels and shelter populations of dogs and dogs like along the US-Mexico border and the colonias in Texas, and we see really high, relatively high, rates of infection but, like we've talked about, these dogs may be at higher risk of getting infected. Like a study out of North Texas recently kind of screened just your average dog that lives at home and 2% of them were infected, where we can find 50% of dogs in kennels or in shelters infected with the parasite and that doesn't mean all of them show clinical signs or ever will be affected by the disease, but some of them will.
Speaker 1:We don't have good numbers to know how many. So we're still learning a lot, and you know, gosh. No, Rachel, please don't think I'm trying to be a veterinarian, but it seems that Ivermectin is the strongest killer of parasites. Ivermectin Does it have no effect on this parasite?
Speaker 2:No, I don't know if we know that. I know they have done a lot of work and in humans it's more the fungal medications actually that treat this parasite, trypanosoma cruzi. They use different. Two different drugs are used in human medicine when we I haven't heard of any ivermectin being successful. Ivermectin doesn't really kill kissing bugs.
Speaker 1:Now, maybe you've told me this, but I don't know the answer. So this can't be contracted to humans, can it?
Speaker 2:Humans do get Chagas disease. Those I have numbers for. There's thought to be like six to eight million humans infected with the parasite throughout the world, most of them in Latin America, where we see a lot of kissing bugs.
Speaker 1:Wow, interesting. I've never heard of this before until y'all reached out to me, and this is that's crazy. So obviously this, this parasite, has been around a very long time. At least medical science has been aware of this. For how long you think?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was discovered in 1909 by a man named Carlos Chagas, and he found it in a human and then found it in kissing bugs and then found it in animals. So we knew all of those parts could be involved. But we've just learned more and more and in the past 15 years we've really seen how big of a problem it is here in the U S, especially in our dogs.
Speaker 1:Is it fatal to humans or has there cases of that?
Speaker 2:It can be they humans experience similar phases of disease to dogs. The acute signs aren't normally so bad, but it can go on in the chronic phases to cause heart problems but also GI problems in humans.
Speaker 1:Wow Again, do you see that a lot. As far as the US cases in humans, you see it more in the South than in the North, midwest or yeah, in humans.
Speaker 2:There's thought to be around 300,000 humans in the US infected. Most of those infections are people who have traveled to the United States, so lived in Latin America and have come to the United States. We do have some locally acquired cases and those come from southern states, texas, florida.
Speaker 1:Hello, this is Kenneth Witt, and Gun Dog Nation is proud to have one of their sponsors as Retriever Training Supply. Based in Alabama, retriever Training Supply offers fast shipping on quality gear. Your dog will love it. Visit RetrieverTrainingSupplycom to purchase gear to help you train your retriever. Listen, they have some of the best leashes I've ever found. It's stuff's made in America. Their leashes are, and they source them locally. They have anything you want fast, friendly service, fast shipping, just good people. Retriever Training Supply. Now you know I had some of your colleagues on here regarding the Drake Project. Yes, this kind of sounds similar in that. The detection of that. I cannot say that word. Please say it for me, for the listeners.
Speaker 2:Hetero-Belharzia. Yes, say that word. Please say it for me, for the listeners.
Speaker 1:Hetero-Bilharzia yes, that word you know. The trick of that was trying to detect it right that your average vet doesn't have the capabilities to detect it. This kind of sounds similar, is it, and I know you've told me how to detect it. But your vets have to know what to look for, right, and the blood has to be sent off. It can't be done in most local vet shops.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, there's no test. That is like a heartworm test that they can run in the back and tell you the result. Okay, yeah, and our testing is not perfect. We're working on developing other diagnostic tests that would help us identify infections.
Speaker 1:Now is A&M like the Drake Project? To my knowledge, A&M was the only school or the school in the United States that was in charge of or in front of this movement. Is this the same for this, Charkas?
Speaker 2:over in front of this movement. Is this the same for this Chagas? I don't want to speak completely, but yeah, my advisor, sarah Hamer, who I did my PhD with, she started a community science program back in 2012. And she's not the first one in the United States to work on Chagas disease, but her work has spearheaded kind of this increase in awareness and research in the United States on Chagas disease. And so in 2012, she started a community science program where people anywhere in the US, if you find a kissing bug, you can collect it safely, submit it to our lab and we will test it for the parasite. Okay, and so through that we have a collection of almost 10,000 kissing bugs from 30 states, maybe.
Speaker 1:And of those taken, do you know the stats on how many of those were positive?
Speaker 2:I know in Texas in most of the places we look about 50% of the kissing bugs are positive.
Speaker 1:That's insane. Yeah, so half the kissing bugs are going to carry this parasite.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's alarming, so let's get into this then. So I assume because you and I spoke before we got on air about grants and the grants you all applied for, you know, like with the Drake Project, I think the AKC gave some money to that project. I don't know about the UKC, but are any of these agencies helping you, organizations or government funding?
Speaker 2:Yeah, the AKC has been amazing. The study that I talked about in the beginning was an AKC funded study.
Speaker 1:OK.
Speaker 2:And they funded other work to look more at insecticides, like if we apply them around kennels, if we give them to dogs, what do they do? Yeah and yeah, we're being funded for drug studies from Department of Defense with NIH funding as well as AKC, and so we're seeing support from these grant agencies for the work that we're doing, which is affirming that people would want to invest in this work, specifically in dog populations.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, I mean, I mean it's. You know, this is something that's not just dog, this is people too. It can cause, you know, sounds like some pretty damaging results. You may have answered this when I asked you a while ago, but has any human died from this parasite, like heart failure or anything like that you know of?
Speaker 2:I can't think of any specific example, but I do know that Chagas disease causes disease in people and yes, is like the cause of death at some points due to the heart disease, or like morbidity just struggles because it causes GI problems that then people have to live with chronically.
Speaker 1:Wow, well, this is just. This is kind of overwhelming, but you know, I'm so glad to have you on here educating people, including myself, about this. So what next?
Speaker 2:I would love to someday be able to say we have a way to treat it. It is a challenging system and figuring out a way to either do find a drug that would be like a heartworm prevention like you give it and it prevents disease, or even prevents severe disease, like if we know dogs are getting infected but we can stop them from showing clinical signs, like ever getting sick. That would be amazing. Or if we could give a drug that then cures them, gets rid of the parasite with minimal side effects through treatment. So those are things that we're working on now.
Speaker 1:Are there other universities or even in other countries that you're aware of that's trying to help combat this epidemic Really?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have partners at University of Georgia who are working with us on some of these treatments, with us on some of these treatments, and then colleagues in Latin America. They in a lot of respects are 10 to 20 years ahead of us in research because it's such a big human disease problem where they are. And so thinking about, like the flea and tick prevention that was mostly seeing if it worked on our species because they had already done it and deployed it in kind of their setting to see how it would affect kissing bug populations. So there are.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry. No, go ahead please.
Speaker 2:No, there are other universities working and trying to come up with different drug protocols that might work.
Speaker 1:This is just an academic question. Do you find that when you are doing stuff like this at other universities or organizations or agencies that are studying this and looking for a cure, everybody's kind of free to exchange information and help each other? Does it seem like that Everybody's on the same team? I guess?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that gets into the little bit of the politics of academia and I've been kept a little bit out of that so far, just being a student. But generally, yes, there's tons of support. I think more about, like the kissing bug collections Like my advisor has been a part of talking to professors at at least two other schools, three of starting their own community science submissions, and so not that we have to collect them all, but if we can help you start one in illinois or delaware or florida, then let's please do that. Like there's so much work to be done, um, that any way that we can help and work towards the same goals in different contexts is a huge win. So I've seen the product of that, which has been really positive.
Speaker 1:So, rachel, is it kind of safe to say that? I hate to generalize and I know this is such a complex issue, but are there standard signs that you can look for in your dog? For you know, for the listeners who are all all of us are dog owners Is there certain things that we should look for to, to be cognizant of, to think, oh, you know what? I better go have my dog checked out. What would you tell people like me?
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, number one. It's tricky, but there are some things that we have seen that may be a good reason to go get your dogs tested for the parasite. The acute disease is hard because sometimes they have a positive litter mate or housemate, and that again is because they're in similar environments. Not that they can pass it back and forth, but if one's exposed then the other one is probably exposed.
Speaker 1:High probability yeah.
Speaker 2:So that would be a reason to test animals. But also if you have a dog that's just working a little bit less well or not running quite as well, they would be signs of just kind of general heart disease.
Speaker 1:Like loss of stamina, loss of energy, common things like that. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and knowing that they live in the South, in an area where they have a lot of time outdoors, and knowing that kissing bugs are around. If you see kissing bugs on your property, that may make you think more about it as a possibility, but bringing it up as an option would not be a problem.
Speaker 1:I'm kind of embarrassed to tell you this, but I'm going to have to Google kissing bug. I'm not sure that I know what it looks like. I'm sure I've seen it.
Speaker 2:They're impressive bugs and, knowing that they feed on blood, they're huge.
Speaker 1:I'm sure I've seen it. Well, maybe, hopefully I'm not, but I'm going to go look and see, so, uh, because, yeah, I mean, you know I'm I'm not in true south texas, uh, but I'm, you know, two hours from san antonio, which I guess that's south texas, you know. So, yeah, so what do you suggest? Hopefully we got listeners on on this podcast, you know we're, believe it or not, we're actually have been downloaded in 27 countries, which blows my mind. But what can people do that want to help? Can they donate? Can they, uh, you know, send kissing bugs into the to the university for testing? Tell, tell the listeners what they can do and how they can go about doing that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I. You're absolutely welcome to submit kissing bugs Our website to do that and to see kissing bug pictures and to read a little bit more about the kissing bugs and the parasite. It's kissingbugtamu for Texas A&M University, dot edu, and there we have a map of locations of kissing bugs that have been submitted. We have information about our team. If you wanted to reach out, there is a direct donate button on that page. But the biggest thing would be to raise awareness, to make sure that people are aware of this disease, especially, especially because we see a lot of it in hunting dogs, and I also know, hunting dogs travel.
Speaker 2:Like I know some of the kennel owners we have come up to Nebraska for the summer when it's too hot to work down here. We've worked with like government working dogs that train in Texas and then are sent all over the country and they can still, unfortunately be infected because they were infected while they were here and so it is a disease we see kind of throughout the US and abroad, More common here, but dogs travel.
Speaker 1:You know just my dogs in the last six months have hunted Louisiana, arkansas, south Dakota, texas.
Speaker 1:I think that's it, but you know plus we traveled across states to get to those states too, you know, and they've actually they've trained in Alabama. So yeah, it's a wow. Well, you've really. You know, the Drake Project opened my eyes about stuff that I've watched for my own dogs, but this is another thing to worry about, to try to protect your animals and even ourselves. So I guess the takeaway is, if you see kissing bugs, number one probably catch one, send it in the university. One probably catch one, send it in the university. And let's just say, let's just say I see maybe more the kissing bugs on my property than I should or I see them at all, and I've got quite a few animals and dogs. Should I? Where would I go to get those dogs tested? Correct, you know what? What would I do?
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, I think talking with your veterinarian would be a step number one. Um, there, yeah, they would have a much better idea of, um, if they've seen other cases or like what the risk is locally Um, other things you can consider, like, while we don't have great answers, insecticides do kill. Kissing bugs and turning off lights at night, reducing any attractants those are steps we can take to try and protect dogs.
Speaker 1:Turning off lights at night. Never would have thought. See just common sense like that. Never would have thought about that.
Speaker 2:Well, the lights are supposed to be at night, right, but yeah.
Speaker 1:So, um, if let's just say that I found kissing bugs, I feel like you know, maybe I need to check, cause I've got a good dog population on the place Should.
Speaker 2:I ask my vet to send the blood off to a certain place for testing. I know that. No, the vet may know and they may have a diagnostic lab that they call um because it's like on campus we use Texas veterinary medical diagnostic lab, um, and I know that they run the diagnostic test but other labs do as well.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, yeah, my vet here, menard. She's a country vet but she knows her stuff, but she's an A&M grad, so I'm sure she's probably aware of this.
Speaker 2:I'm going to talk to her about it though. Yeah, I will say if you do collect a kissing bug, since the parasite's in the guts, we would recommend trying not to squish it. Or if you do use like a bleach-based cleaner afterwards, okay, um, and to pick it up, don't use bare hands, but take like a plastic bag, um, or a paper towel or something to pick it up okay, yeah, that. Yeah, that would protect you, but also the environment, from just leaving the parasite there.
Speaker 1:You know, now you've got me, my wheels are just turning back. This weekend I'm going to a hunt test, actually in college station, and I know there's 284 dogs registered there. You know that's and those dogs will have traveled from some, from out of probably they're probably a good percentage from out of state. So, wow, that's something to think about now, um, are you a dog owner?
Speaker 2:Not currently, but I grew up with dogs.
Speaker 1:I'm sure it's probably tough being a fourth year vet student, and then all your other activities you're doing with the university, uh, such as this research project. So is this? Is you research this when you were in grad school, working on your PhD, correct? Yeah, I did Did you do your dissertation on this I did, yeah, did you, I did. And you do your dissertation on this. I did, yeah, did you? I did.
Speaker 2:And it's a privilege Like it's such a privilege to work with these owners and these dogs.
Speaker 1:So how long did you have to work on your dissertation, and was it written or oral?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was. I spent three years before I started vet school and then another two and a half years. I spent three years before I started vet school and then another two and a half years, and it was. There's a large written component to it, but I also gave a couple of talks about the work.
Speaker 1:So you've got a piles of work on this stuff then.
Speaker 2:It's been a lot of fun and there's still a lot of work to do. So yeah, is it?
Speaker 1:frustrating though, rachel. I mean I can see it Some of your voice. I've asked you certain questions and I know you want to tell me a better answer, but you can't, and I can just see the frustration. Is that correct?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it uh. Yeah, man, learning about this stuff is slower than I would like, um, but I have hope that, like there are answers, we just haven't found them yet and working with people who are just as motivated to find the answers is encouraging, even when, like even when it gets hard, yeah, and I can't. I haven't found better people than like the people who own these dogs and who work them and train them.
Speaker 1:Well, what I'm going to do, what I'm, I'm starting to build a website with, with an email list of listeners and people that are interested in this stuff. So anytime you have a publication or something that you want to send as an attachment, I can send out to all the people that subscribe you know, I don't pay for it, I don't charge anything for that and just educate our listeners, because you wouldn't believe the network. Well, for example, if you get bored this weekend, roll out there to the dog trial, the dog test, and you're going to see a lot of. I mean, it's a, it's a big deal. So, gun dog owners uh, well, everybody loves their dogs, right? Pet owners regular, just regular old house lap dogs. But gun dog owners are serious, you know. I mean we, we, we spent a lot of money feeding their dogs the best, uh, and it's it's, it's a way of life. So I don't think, I think this audience will be a great place to spread the word. That's what I'm trying to say.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I believe it. That has been my interactions with people.
Speaker 1:Well, that's right, you've worked with you. This ain't your first rodeo with a gundog guy, right? You've been doing this for a while.
Speaker 2:Since 2018.
Speaker 1:Wow Okay.
Speaker 2:I still have a lot to learn, though I am not old hat at this.
Speaker 1:Hey, I usually have trainers on here most of the time and I've trained and I'm probably older than your father and I've been training since I was a kid, you know, not professionally, just full of dogs and I learned every time on this show from people that I have it's, I love it, it's, it's. I think it's. The best hobby in the world for me is just this podcast, because I learned so much that I can take back and work with my own dogs. So I understand how you feel. Yeah, well, rachel, if you have any new developments in your research, especially something that's worth getting out there, I'll have you back on any time. Because, hey, this is.
Speaker 1:We have certain goals at this podcast that I have. One is to encourage young people to keep the sport alive and keep our heritage going, but the other thing is to make us all better gun dog owners and nutrition and health is is number one, right? If you don't have that, you, your dog, is not going to feel like going to a hunt test or feel like hunting or you know. Uh, so it's important, it's extremely important. But thank you so much. I guess Kelly Curry's kind of gave me the lifeline to all these Texas A&M vets and vet students and vet faculty, and it's great and I learned. So was there anything else that you would like to tell the listeners before, before I let you go? I mean?
Speaker 2:Before I let you go, I mean just to reiterate that the kissing bug is what spreads it in the poop and not all dogs show clinical signs. Some of them it's really tragic and some can be managed with heart medications later in life. Then others show no signs ever and we're still working on treatments and better recommendations for how to intervene and prevent infection. And yes, if we find anything, I will absolutely reach back out to you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know, rach, I was sitting here thinking you've actually dedicated a part of your life to this cause. I mean your PhD, your dissertation, four years of vet school, you're still at it, so that I admire you for that and appreciate that. I mean that takes some perseverance. I mean to me I can see where it'd be easy to give up and move on to something else to study because it's so difficult, right? You don't have a cure. You don't have a. You know, and it's not your fault, and the parasite can attack in so many different ways. A dog could fall dead. You never knew it had it, so you don't know what signs to look for. That has to be so frustrating. I mean to me I'm sitting here going, well, you know, it's just, oh gosh, it's a. I just pray for, pray for a cure, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, I have hope that we'll find one. Yes, takes longer than a PhD. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you for your dedication. I I mean people like you is is why you know it's what improves our dogs lives and the lifestyle of our dogs. So I mean really, uh, I'm just sitting here thinking I'm not, I'm not a real patient guy and if I've said worked on something that many years, I would just be nuts. You're, you have to be a special person.
Speaker 2:Well, thanks, but I've learned something new every day too. Um and it's been an amazing place to be um to learn about the disease and work with people and dogs.
Speaker 1:Well, Rachel has been a pleasure. Thank you so much and uh, we'll, we will get. Oh, sorry, I thought my battery went dead. Sorry about that. So I'm going to plug this in one second before we go, Cause my my lap. I've noticed off my laptop and I want to, okay, Sorry, Anyway. So, Rachel, one last time. If they want to donate or read or find out more about kissing bugs and issues like that or where they can send kissing bugs, that web address again is yeah, it's kissing bugs.
Speaker 2:Let me pull it up to make sure I'm actually telling you the right thing. Oops, I mean if you search, but yes, here we are, it's kissingbugtamuedu okay, and there they can go on. They can donate, they can read, educate themselves more about it yeah, that takes to the website for our community science program, um, but walks through kind of an overview, gives resources, pictures, um, a map, and then there's like question and answer kind of thing and I guess if you have updates, you're going to put it on that first thing probably right.
Speaker 2:We do put updates on here. Occasionally. It is harder to update than some other things, and so potentially putting it out on a list sort of like you're putting together would actually get the information out faster.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right, so I guess you're not going to ho holler go corn huskers you're, you're aggie, straight up conflicted sometimes, but we don't play each other, so it's okay yeah, yeah, you know, I've been here 13 years, but I'm a university, kentucky, grad and, uh, I bleed blue.
Speaker 1:But you know, I live in. I live in texas, it's, it's, yeah, I feel you. I know what that feels like. All right, rachel, thank you so much and maybe we'll have you on here again. Please keep us updated and if there's anything worth that the listeners need to know, you reach out to me and I'll get you back on here thank you so much oh, you're welcome.
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