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2021 ESAA National Information![]() |
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Salud!
It’s April, and income tax talk is in the air. If you are looking at your
tax-deductible donations for 2012 on your tax form, you might be thinking
you wish you had made a donation that will benefit the future health of
English Setters and all dogs. Now’s the time to plan your 2013 donations
to make sure you cover the causes that are near and dear to your heart and
perhaps reduce your taxable income in the process.
You might consider making a donation to AKC’s Canine Health Foundation
(CHF). The AKC created the CHF in 1995 as a 501(c)3 charitable
organization with the mission of raising funds to support canine health
research. From the CHF web site http://www.akcchf.org/: “the mission of
the. . . .CHF is ‘to advance the health of all dogs and their owners by
funding sound scientific research and supporting the dissemination of
health information to prevent, treat, and cure canine disease.’”
Armed with information gathered from parent clubs, veterinarians, and dog
owners about health concerns specific to a breed or group of breeds, teams
of researchers make proposals to study those health concerns in a
scientific, organized way with the aim of reducing or eliminating them.
The CHF itself may fund studies, and an individual parent club or group of
parent clubs may do so.
On the CHF web site, by clicking on Funded Research, you can find out what
research has been conducted concerning a particular health category, a
particular disease, or a particular breed by tailoring your search. If you
search on English Setters, you will see three studies have been completed,
two on deafness and one on thyroid disease.
Compared to other breeds, English Setters are fortunate that we have fewer
serious inherited health issues. Still, we should do our best to
understand and take steps to eliminate or mitigate those we do have.
Each year, the CHF sends to the English Setter Association of America
Health and Genetics Committee a list of studies that might be relevant to
English Setters. The Committee reviews the proposals and prioritizes those
that would seem to be of most benefit to our breed, and funds we have
raised are allocated with ESAA Board approval.
It takes money to fund research that will lead to answers to our most
pressing health questions. There are many suggested ways to donate under
the How You Can Help tab on the CHF web site. You may earmark your
donation for a specific breed, and your money will be waiting in a
donor-directed fund when research is proposed that English Setter fanciers
might wish to fund. You may click on a particular project, and if it
touches your life in some way, click on a button that will allow you to
donate to that project.
If one of your beloved dogs or a friend’s dog passes away, you could make
a donation to the CHF in that dog’s name as a tangible way of remembering
that dog and helping all dogs.
In the CHF, AKC has provided us with a tool to deal with health issues in
our breed, to help us better plan breedings to avoid inherited genetic
diseases, and to deal more effectively with such diseases when they occur.
And, all CHF donations are tax-deductible.