President’s Message January/February 2006 Here’s hoping that your holiday season was peaceful with friends, family and hounds, and I wish everyone the best of success in 2006.  Beginning the new year starts the pursuit of new goals and enthusiasm for keeping resolutions.  You can start by trying your hand at the newer activities now available to Basset Hounds - rally, agility or the hunting performance test - or begin planning that special futurity litter or working with that promising new youngster to prepare for the spring shows and field trials.  Whatever road you decide to take, whatever venue you choose to pursue, may you and your Bassets have much success and may your expectations be exceeded.  The spring board meeting this year is scheduled for February 25-26, in Maryland near Baltimore International Airport.  During that weekend we will cover a host of various issues and, weather permitting, we’ll take a short side trip to the 2006 nationals show site in Gettysburg to meet with Anne O’Reilly, the nationals team and the complex staff.  Our agenda is quickly beginning to fill and if you wish to know more about the schedule, check the website as it will be posted there.  Please let Jerry know as soon as possible if you’d like to schedule a face-to-face committee presentation and to submit your reports. Committee chairs are asked not to wait until the last minute to submit reports as this creates havoc with our schedule. Planning for the 2006 Gettysburg national is continuing in earnest, and the committee is working through the fine details to ensure all BHCA members will have another memorable event. I’m hoping to see Claudia Orlandi’s proposal for a BHCA mid-week “health day” launched at this national with hope its success will pave the way for future such undertakings.  Kay Reilly, FTAC chair, also advised me that the field trialers are planning a great dinner for Friday evening so do plan on attending.  I encourage you to submit national bids for 2008 and 2009. As you know, these events take time to plan, contracts need to be reviewed, and it’s certainly not too soon to reserve a site and select committees. All bids are welcome and you can rest assured they will receive our full consideration.  The board will be reviewing the national guidelines to streamline our selection process while remaining flexible and open to new ideas.  Congratulations to Carroll Peterman and his committee in Texas for hosting the first Texas Regional Hunt Test in January.  To date we have had 30 hunt tests with a total of 500 entries - 110 Hunting Hound, 45 Senior Hunting Hound, 26 Master Hunting Hound and 10 Master Hunter Excellent dogs earning titles to date.  If you have not experienced the hunting performance test and are interested, please contact JoAnn Hillaker.  Another first for our Arizona members -  Mimi Tysseling and her committee are hosting a BHCA Regional in March 2006, dedicating all proceeds to the AKC/CHF in memory of Mary Ann Svizeny.   Mark Chryssanthis has accomplished amazing things on the web site and has fine tuned  the BHCA image.  Mark really enjoys web design and will be instrumental in making BHCA prominent. Check out some of the new links, pictures and updates.  Any comments or further recommendations are welcome.  Just for your information we have had several hundred hits since we began measuring interest a few months ago.    Most of you are probably aware of the recent PAWS legislation and the increasing concern of canine legislative issues spilling over into individual municipalities and states.  These issues do affect all of us on some level, and the need for a stable canine legislative network is becoming more and more obvious.  Doug Taylor, our new legislative chair, has promised to keep us apprised of current issues.  If you have an interest please contact Doug and become part of his team.  The topics of welfare and rescue continue to be in the forefront.  Rosemary Ryan and her committee have added several links to accredited rescue organizations, all of which reflect the high ethical standards of BHCA.  Rosemary promises a more informative rescue column for Tally Ho in future issues and members are asked to contact Rosemary with their own rescue stories. One important area of interest to me personally is the status of health within our breed.  I have mentioned on several occasions the need for better research to study diseases specific to the Basset Hound.  I have also mentioned the potential for a health registry which is long overdue. Input from the membership for such an undertaking has been very positive, and I’m going to ask the board at the spring meeting to support our health and research committee in considering the feasibility, design and implementation of such a program. One would like to think that we are all looking for the best possible health and breeding standards achievable to safeguard the future of the Basset Hound breed.  Two thousand six is already shaping up to be another banner year.  This group of officers, board and committees are dedicated to open communication from its members.  Please join me by continuing to “raise the bar” and keeping the Basset Hound Club of America the fine organization it is.  Warmest regards, Thad Makowski