Hydatid Certificates For Trial Dogs

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30975, 3 February 1966, Page 9

Hydatid Certificates For Trial Dogs

Competitors at dog trials are required to produce certificates showing that their dogs are free from hydatids. At a committee meeting after the annual meeting of the Canterbury Centre of the New Zealand Sheep Dog Trial Association yesterday there was some difference of opinion about the enforcement of this requirement. According to a decision of the council of the New Zealand Sheep Dog Trial Association last year when it approved provisional arrangements with the National Hydatids Council, the certificate must certify that the dog has been treated for hydatids within the six weeks before March 1 and has been found free of infection. Mr J. Riddell, who is secretary of the Geraldine Collie Dog Club, asked what was the use of making laws if it was not possible to carry them out. This, he said, affected particularly the yoiung man who came in from the high country with his dogs and who might well not have heard of this requirement. He said he would ask him for his certificate but he was not going to bar him from his club’s trials if he did not have one. “I am not going to become a policeman either.” said Mr

P. Newton, of the Loburn Collie Club.

Mr J. H. Divers, of Geraldine, who is a member of the New Zealand council, said that he thought it was a requirement that had' been introduced without enough thought being given to it. The New Zealand president, Mr G. A. Stead, had been invited along to the National Hydatids Council. Some way was being sought to wipe out this disease and Mr Stead had been asked to help through the dog trial world and he had the support in these arrangements of the great majority of councillors. It was now law as far as the New Zealand Association was concerned. Some club secretaries said that they would have nothing to do with it, but ultimately they would have to face up to it. He thought that as many as possible should comply with the requirement and the provision should be explained to the young man who came down from the high country. It could be a bit of a farce, said Mr K. P. F. Neilll, of Little River, a certificate could apply to a dosing a long time before. In his district the certificate only said that the dog had been dosed.