Results suggest that urolithiasis and urinary tract infection may be associated with hypercalcemia in dogs-with primary hyperparathyroidism, but that development of renal insufficiency is uncommon.

S Marina infection is a potentially serious illness associated with iguana exposure, and it reflects the larger problem of reptile-associated salmonellosis. Many parents do not know that owning an iguana puts their children at risk for Salmonella infection. Pediatricians, veterinarians, and pet store owners should inform their patients and customers of the potential risks of owning reptiles and provide appropriate preventive education.

In dogs with NOH, administration of trilostane at low doses every 12 hours was effective, although 2 dogs became ill during treatment. Drug effects diminished within 8 to 9 hours. Because of potential adverse effects, lower doses should be evaluated.

Our primary goal was to generate an accurate estimate of the daily environmental loading rate of Cryptosporidium parvum oocysts for adult beef cattle, using immunomagnetic separation coupled with direct immunofluorescence microscopy for a highly sensitive diagnostic assay. An additional goal was to measure the prevalence and intensity of fecal shedding of C. parvum oocysts in pre-and postparturient cows as an indicator of their potential to infect young calves. This diagnostic method could detect with a >90% probability oocyst concentrations as low as 3.2 oocysts g of feces ؊1 , with a 54% probability of detecting just one oocyst g of feces ؊1 . Using this diagnostic method, the overall apparent prevalence of adult beef cattle testing positive for C. parvum was 7.1% (17 of 240), with 8.3 and 5.8% of cattle shedding oocysts during the pre-and postcalving periods, respectively. The mean intensity of oocyst shedding for test-positive cattle was 3.38 oocysts g of feces ؊1 . The estimated environmental loading rate of C. parvum ranged from 3,900 to 9,200 oocysts cow ؊1 day ؊1 , which is substantially less than a previous estimate of 1. . Use of this highly sensitive assay functioned to detect a greater proportion of low-intensity shedders in our population of cattle, which reduced the estimated mean intensity of shedding and thereby reduced the associated environmental loading rate compared to those of previous studies.Cryptosporidium parvum has emerged as a ubiquitous waterborne microbial pathogen, with specific genotypes readily transmitted ambidirectionally between livestock and humans (7,9,12,25,28,36). One of the first steps in designing watershed management programs for minimizing the occurrence of C. parvum in drinking water supplies is to identify significant quantitative sources of this parasite. Adult cattle are often considered potential nonpoint sources of environmental contamination for C. parvum, but there is some disagreement over the relative importance that adult cattle have in loading watersheds with significant amounts of C. parvum oocysts. In particular, there is a wide range of reported prevalences of fecal shedding of C. parvum for adult beef and dairy cattle. Numerous investigators have reported mean prevalences of fecal shedding from ϳ20 to ϳ70% in groups of clinically healthy adult cattle (23,31,34), yet several large cross-sectional epidemiologic surveys have observed prevalences of only 2% or less in asymptomatic adult cattle populations (4, 20, 41). Some of this variation in the observed prevalence of fecal shedding can be explained by different investigators using diagnostic assays of differing sensitivity and specificity (11,13,15), but much of the variation is the result of studying different populations of cattle (e.g., beef versus dairy), different age distributions within those populations, and groups of cattle under different management practices, especially when only a single farm or a small sample is examined. For example, we found in two different studies that calving duration fo...