Absolutely
; just because an MRI result isn't listed doesn't mean the dog was not scanned. But the flip side over time should be, that there is pressure as well as positive feedback in having dogs scanned and listed -- so that it will increasingly be the case that dogs listed without MRIs probably have not been scanned and therefore may cause puppy buyers and other breeders to hesitate before involvement with that dog's breeder.
They had not expected to be charged £100 if they wanted to have them regraded,so they could appear on the KC healthfinder,so perfectly compliant scans go unrecorded and this,coupled with the delays and doubts regarding publication,left health focused breeders disillusioned and as a result,they are slow to buy into the scheme.
I just don't buy this as an excuse and it truncates the actual history behind the issues (I do of course understand the frustration of not having a larger body of scans).
The truth is that there WAS a scheme for ages -- several years!! -- to create EBVs, and the reality was that breeders did not submit enough scans, or of decent enough quality, to make that scheme viable even though it cost them
nothing to do so (often breeders knowingly and deliberately for whatever reason, chose the cheapest scans from centres that they were told many times had lower quality scans, and that people knew quite well, also did not submit them to the existing EBV scheme. Breeders overwhelmingly chose to continue to use those scanning centres over several years.
The researchers behind the original EBV scheme put out many calls, as eventually did the breed club after the issue was raised several times, to please, please submit existing scans. Well before this time I know from a personal conversation with the scanning centre involved that at LEAST 1500 MRIs had been done, almost ENTIRELY for UK breeders, but only a minute proportion of these were ever submitted for the existing EBV scheme.
So few were submitted that the researchers had to announce the scheme shelved at least for the time being, while other schemes involving scans for other diseases for other breeds went ahead as breeders for those other breeds submitted more than enough scans to make their EBV schemes viable. Gradually that initial scheme rolled over to the new BVA/KC scheme.
Meanwhile some breeders were (rightly, but for varied agendas, not always to benefit the dogs) complaining that they feared there was no consistency in grading on scans or quality of how they were taken and wanted an official scheme with an adjudicating panel of neurologists to agree a scan grade. Some clearly were sincere in wanting a decent scheme;others followed the time worn approach of always dismissing the existing approach to a scheme and asking for something else, conveniently postponing their own participation in schemes they said hey would support, if only, if only...
. Yes, there are issues with it, but to complain about cost? -- what is supposed to fund the work of professionals and admin costs of doing all the grading and running of a system? If breeders truly want an honest system that ensures certain standards and consistency of scans, this takes time and money. Why have clubs not stepped up to help fund these costs for breeders? Why are costs being paid by funds such as Rupert's Fund when the clubs contribute nothing and the breeders don't even seem to have the motivation to create a matching fund to support breed health and scanning and the EBV programme?
As for the early scans -- surely any decent breeder will know that they needed to scan from the point scanning was identified as the only way to know whether they had breeding dogs that already had SM? They got valuable information for scans that most of them only paid around £100 for through club scanning days (incredibly cheap for such important information, as opposed to US breeders who would need to pay from 4 to 10 times that amount for a single scan and without any EBV programme).
If nothing else, how could the old scans be added into the new database unless the new scheme were to obtain all the old scan films or CDs (which in most cases were never released to owners or researchers in the first place) and then put them all to the grading panel -- a task that would be very time consuming and costly (even were the films or digital scans to be released for this purpose). Who would pay for this? And again the issue is that most of these scans were done without using the scanning standards since developed, or machines of the correct quality (issues flagged long before the KC/BVA scheme launched yet few changed where they went for scans -- to the centre they knew for years, would no submit scans for research hence to 'risk' of results being public). So, all those scans either cannot be used or if taken at face value, would distort the scheme with some likely inaccurate original grades.
I understand some frustration, but 1) breeders utterly failed to support the original ** free** EBV scheme, which never was able to launch due to lack of a viable number of scans as breeders themselves chose not to submit them, and 2) breeders themselves demanded the new scheme but then many -- same old names, same old breeders in many cases -- worked to undermine it from the very start by complaining about cost, publication and the need to actually have standardised scans from agreed centres -- and they haven't yet explained how they thought the new scheme requiring a panel of neurologists plus admin costs would be paid for (as it is, numerous times it has been paid for by generous pet owners donating to Rupert's Fund!). There is so much positive work that the clubs could do in fundraising to cover submission costs, agreeing to publication and not allowing petty issues to get politicised internally and be dragged out forever.
Why has the so-called health rep for the club, or their little panel of so called health reps, not gone in and sorted out their theoretical issues with this scheme directly? In their place I'd have done this months ago -- surely that's the role of such a panel. Or what role do they serve? Could it be by simply complaining about reasons why they cannot support the BVA scheme while never addressing the issues, they conveniently keep out of the scheme entirely and give members an excuse as well? Why are the health reps instead promoting a scheme whereby results remain secret, outside their own jurisdiction? Extraordinary and one has to say: what a sign of total ineptitude that they cannot apparently work within their own Kennel Club, with their own membership, to save their own breed. :sl*p:
I can only imagine how frustrating all of this is for the many decent breeders out there, many of whom I know you know well, Sins.