I think the current thinking is that whatever causes it , is found in water so with any luck this spell of cold weather will give us a bit of a break.
I was chatting to our local farmer about it, and he has an interesting theory - more to do with TB but we agreed that it could apply to AR as well. He said that 'his' badgers don't have TB and he puts it down to the cleaner chalk hills. A little further north of us TB is rife, but that is an altogether damper clay and sand area. An interesting theory!
We had a scare last week when I heard of a young Viszla living a mile away who had a foot problem and then died just a few days later - I assumed AR, but it turned out the poor little thing had tetanus! She had her leg amputated and was doing well, but succumbed to lockjaw in the night

She was only three!