Any time a retrograde step is taken with regard to cavalier health, it's to be expected that canine press/bloggers/columnists will come down like a tonne of bricks.
Patrick Burns never pulls his punches..check out his
blog
Sins
It is painful reading, Terrierman is very harsh, but there are parts of it that are true.
The fault lies with the breeders, the breed clubs and the Kennel Clubs.
In the past breeders hid the health problems from each other & the pet owning public.
Breed clubs, at best, issued health protocols that they knew were uniformly ignored by the majority of their members and they did nothing to change that.
Now it seems that the problem of non-compliance in the USA is being tackled by watering down protocols to make them more palatable to breeders, despite the fact that it will render them completely ineffective.
The Kennel Clubs washed their hands of the situation by saying it was for the breeders to identify health problems & then approach them.
The UK Kennel Club knew for years, decades, about the health problems that were showing up in pedigree dogs and they offered no guidance, issued no warnings, and offered no encouragement to those that tried to raise awareness of health issues.
It is heartbreaking what is happening to these lovely sweet little dogs. It is not just SM & MVD. There are other conditions, Dry Eye/Curly Coat, Episodic Falling Syndrome that are known to be inherited problems.
I now feel the need to warn puppy buyers that cavaliers are very health compromised indeed and if they do buy a cavalier the first thing they should do is get it insured.
I am scared that the health issues in cavaliers are too severe for cavaliers to survive as a breed that is suitable as a family pet. The cost in money & emotional heartbreak will be too much.
And before breeders trot out their anecdotes of their golden oldies, I will say that I have a nearly 14 year old here, still managing okay, despite MVD & mild SM, but he is an exception, dogs like him are more and more one-offs, most of their litter mates will have not lived anywhere near as long.
Most of the next generations of cavaliers are likely to have very expensive, painful, and distressing illnesses long before they reach anything like that age
From the point of view of the future of the breed I do think it is a shame that so many of the people that care, like anniemacs breeder, are giving up breeding because they have seen how the dogs are affected by SM.
I understand their dread of producing affected puppies, but I do wish they could steel themselves to try breeding a litter or two for health, not for the show ring, complying wholeheartedly with the SM & MVD guidelines.
It is the only way to see if the guidelines will help us to breed back to a healthier dog.
When compassionate breeders like this give up they are leaving the way clear for the callous breeders who just want to breed without any hindrance. This includes those club breeders who breed from untested cavaliers or young cavaliers whose age makes their health certificates useless.
The latest Breed Record Supplement show one club member with a young bitch producing her second litter at 22 months, mated two seasons running. Breeding cavaliers should not be left to people like this.
Are actions like this any better than puppy farming? Club members know what they should be doing and why they should be testing. As their puppies will become the next generation of show breeding stock they do more harm to the breed as a whole than any BYB or puppy farmer.
Fortunately there are some people that are still breeding to the MVD & SM protocols. I often have details of such litters to pass on to puppy buyers.
