The Dachshund Diary, Fran Colonna

These articles will be a continuing feature in the DCA Newsletter. Thank you to Claire Mancha and Kathy Lockyer for initiating the research involved in order to share such an important part of Dachshund history.

Fran Colonna was born in Charleston, West Virginia. She and Her husband Gary now call Lansing, Kansas home. Fran began her long career and love of dogs at the spry age of six when she showed a Beagle for father and uncle. Her family also showed Foxhounds. Fran’s uncle called their place Heather Merchant Farm.

Shortly after Fran’s entrance into the dog show world, she borrowed a dog from an exhibitor and entered Juniors. This tenacity has proven to be a trait that has moved her through many adventures with dogs, dog people, the military family she married into and with her own careers.

At the age of twelve Fran got her first dachshund, a smooth, Handsome Hans. In Fran’s words, “He wasn’t very good but I loved him dearly and was crushed when he died of liver disease two years later.”

The dog that hooked Fran for life on Dachshunds was a red wire boy, sired by a Heying-Teckel dog and a smooth Kleetal bitch. Fran bought that wire at the age of fourteen in 1954. Fran said, “He was a red dog with a gorgeous head and good coat and was my constant companion for fourteen years.”

Fran stated in her biography for judging Longhair dachshunds at DCA that, “John Cook always hated that story because he was so against cross coat breeding.” Fran stated, “In those days wires were like crocodiles but her red dog had a lovely temperament. Fran’s father said they were a Presbyterian family and the dog was too, therefore, he was named John Calvin Shagmore.

In 1972 Fran bought her all-time favorite wire, CH Nonsuch Great Expectations which became her base bitch for her wire line.

Fran’s journey into the longhair variety began when Gary was stationed at Fort Belvoir, VA in 1971. There Fran met Mary Howell of the famous Bayard Longhairs. A great friendship was developed, traveling to shows together and even breeding a few litters together, including a red Cardinal daughter.

Fran shares that some of her proudest wins included a longhair which was a multi Best in Show winner and placed at Westminster with a Group two. Another longhair bitch went winners bitch, best of winners, best of variety and best of breed at DCA nationals. A wire, Fran bred went winners bitch and best of variety at another DCA national.

Gary was transferred to Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas in 1983. Shortly after that Fran shares, “Gary encouraged her to apply for her license to judge dachshunds.” That led to Fran eventually judging the Hound Group. Fran has judged the nationals and for the host show at nationals multiple times, judging Longs once, Smooths once and Wires four times. She was scheduled to judge 2022 host shows for the nationals. Sadly, she had a fall right before the shows and was unable to complete her assignment.

Fran has dabbled in showing other breeds including Afghans. All were finished and Grand Champions, but none were campaigned. Fran recounts. “Just beautiful, aloof, easy house dogs, just adored them.” Her first Afghan was purchased in 1988 from Peter Belmont.

When Fran was asked about memorable moments she described one judging assignment, “Probably judging at Old Dominion in a howling rainstorm. The tents blew over, the water was over my shoe tops. We put the dogs on the yellow Moss-bow long tables and gaited them down the length of the table in the pouring rain. Even the white picket fences around the rings blew over. Crates got thrown around too.”

Many years ago, my husband, Tom, met Fran for the first time when she awarded our longhair, CH DC Sausage Stables Sir Wonagain SL VC RN CGC, the variety at the Greater Portland Dachshund Club specialties. Tom and “Sam” are pictured in this article. Sam was bred by Miki Perry.

I have had the pleasure of working with Fran on the DCA Board of Directors of which she has served on for multiple decades. Fran has served many clubs over the years including the Metropolitan Washington Dachshund Club, Heart of America Dachshund Club, Leavenworth Kennel Club and the Columbine Dachshund Club.

In March of 2022 Fran judged her last all-breed show at the Heart of America Club, Inc. at Kansas City.

On Sunday she was honored by the dog world as she judged the Hound group.

Remarkably, with all of Fran’s involvement in the dog world she worked for the Federal Civil Service, raised four children, John, Stephen, Kathryn and Kelly. Fran and the family made the moves and adjustments that come with being a family in the military. Nineteen grandchildren and eight great grandchildren have been added to this family. After retiring from the FCS in 1991, Fran’s untiring energy continue her into a second career with Red Cross National Disaster program.

I asked some of Fran’s close friends for one word that would describe her. Responses I received included vivacious, adventurous, tenacious and dedicated. Appropriately, the last response included dedicated to her family, friends and her breed.

Fran’s word for herself is integrity!!

after walks through the woods or grassy settings. On dogs, look especially on the feet (and between toes), on lips, around eyes, ears (and inside ears), near the anus, and under the tail.

Remove ticks stat. The quicker you find them the less likely your dog will contract a secondary illness related to tick bites. Learn the proper method of tick removal. Invest in a pair of fine tweezers used for this purpose. If you are unable to do so, consult with a veterinarian. sk your veterinarian to conduct a tick check at each exam. They’ll be able to find any you may have missed.

Prevent ticks from jumping on your dog with one of the many veterinary-approved flea and tick preparations available on the market. Speak to your veterinarian to find the best and most appropriate product for your dog.

Keep grass mowed as short as possible. Refrain from walking into grassy patches in endemic tick areas if you can.

Get your dog vaccinated. Vaccination could prevent your dog from getting Lyme disease. They may not be appropriate for some dogs, so discuss with your vet.! _________________________________________

EMERGING EFFECTIVE CANCER OPTION IMMUNOTHERAPY HELPS THE BODY USE ITS OWN WEAPONS

According to immunologist John Yanelli PhD, close to a tenth of the 70 million dogs in the United States will develop cancer. The risk increases with age. Over 50 percent of dogs over 10 will suffer from some type of cancer, and 25 percent of those will die from cancer. For some canine cancers, immunotherapy is more than the latest buzzword. It’s an effective treatment. Traditional cancer therapies either destroy cancers via radiation or surgery or, as in chemotherapy, attack the dog’s cancer while also damaging his immune system. A big plus to immunotherapy is that it can be specific, targeting only abnormal cells and not affecting other normal cells.

What Is Immunotherapy?

Immunotherapy uses your dog’s own immune system to fight and destroy cancer cells. A healthy immune system recognizes and destroys abnormal cells every day in a healthy dog. While it’s normally triggered by the rapid rate at which cancer cells replicate, the immune system can be overtaken by cancer cells. They can multiply at too fast a rate for the immune system to react or the cancer cells somehow hide from immunesystem recognition. In these cases, the immune system may need to be stimulated or jump-started to recognize the cancer cells and attack them.

A Developing Therapy

There are some caveats to using immunotherapy.Much of the information on immunotherapy for dogs has been extrapolated from human studies. But the canine immune system has not been studied as extensively as the human immune system. The workhorse cells of the immune system, the lymphocytes, have not been fully characterized. This can make it harder to predict which dogs and which cancers are most likely to respond.

Oncologist Kelly R. Hume, DVM, DACVIM, Associate Professor, Clinical Sciences at the New York State College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell emphasizes that it is difficult to determine which patients will benefit from immunotherapy and which therapies have trials and data backing their safety and efficacy.

“One challenge with immunotherapy is predicting which patients will respond,” says Dr. Hume. “There is a lot of research going on both to find ways to increase the number of patients that respond to immunotherapies and to identify biomarkers that will predict which patients will respond. Because there are very few immunotherapies available in veterinary medicine, there are not yet many hurdles to commercializing these products. Practitioners and owners need to be vigilant about requesting peer-reviewed efficacy and safety data on immunotherapy products that are commercially available.” Immunotherapy seems to work best with a smaller “cancer load,” which means many cancers respond best after radiation, surgery, or chemotherapy to shrink the cancer first. But that increases the expense of treatment and means more owner compliance is necessary.

Limitations

In fairness to this evolving therapy, cancers in dogs are not as extensively identified as are human cancers from both appearance (phenotype) and genetic (genotype) viewpoints. That makes it difficult to create unique immunotherapies that would be appropriate for an individual dog’s tumors. Dog breeds show different susceptibility to cancers and even variations in how cancers develop and respond to therapy in different breeds or lines within a breed. Much cancer research involves collaboration with human medical researchers. Kristy Richards MD PhD was a Cornell researcher who studied canine lymphoma and how the treatments could benefit both people and dogs. One area she explored was CAR (Chimeric Antigen Receptor) T cells.

T cells are one of the immune system warriors that attack cancer cells and other pathogens. With CAR, an antibody becomes part of a T cell. Since it is on the surface, it can easily identify and bind with cancer cells. Of course, the T cell comes along with the antibody and can then kill the cancer cell. Dr. Richards described CAR as a “guided missile” heading for cancer cells.

Cancer Vaccines

Cornell is participating in a CAR national, multi-institutionalstudy evaluating an osteosarcoma vaccine for dogs. “The results arebeing analyzed elsewhere and results are not available yet,” says Dr. Hume, but it’s one of the comparative oncology projects that will hopefully benefit both people and dogs. For research on canine cancers, most of the work is done with patients with naturally occurring cancers. For many owners, participating in a clinical trial helps financially while also contributing to cancer knowledge. The first cancer vaccine to have widespread use is Oncept from Merial. This vaccine was designed to prevent metastases of melanoma (see October 2018, “Diagnosis of Melanoma”). In dogs, melanomas tend to occur in dark pigmented dogs such as Scottish Terriers and are not directly related to sun exposure. If the melanoma appears in the mouth or at nail beds, it tends to bevery aggressive with rapid spread to local lymph nodes and to the lungs. This vaccine includes DNA from the human melanocyte protein tyrosinase.

Human tyrosinase is similar to the same enzyme in dogs and is part of pigment production. It is present in most melanomas. So when this vaccine is given, the dog mounts an immune response that cross reacts to both the human and canine tyrosinase, and goes after any melanoma cells. A rare side effect is the immune system indiscriminately going after a dog’s normal