Where does one begin?
PDE was a documentary shown in August 2008. It led to three reports on Dog Breeding in the UK and widespread, if reluctant in many cases, moves to improve the health of purebred dogs
It is on YouTube in different parts and is well worth watching in its entirety. It has changed the dog showing world in the UK, and been shown all over the world, including the USA.
These are the parts that have footage relating to Cavaliers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pm17MesMFRc
Carol Fowler, who is a member of this forum & I appear in this one........
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHw2CmDlhCo&feature=related
I agreed to give an interview for the film because for six years, as the Cavalier Club health representative and the owner of a top stud dog that had shown up with late onset SM symptoms, I had been trying to raise awareness of the spread of syringomyelia.
After attending the House of Commons meeting shown in the second clip I was prevented from attending meetings to set up an official MRI scheme despite requests from researchers that I, as the Cavalier Club SM spokesperson, should be allowed to attend.
Show Breeders were so incensed that I had broken the Breeders' unspoken Rule of Silence.......
http://letsdiscussjudging.com/Omerta.html ......that they called a Special General Meeting and removed me from the Cavalier Club committee.
There were many cavalier owners that saw the film and realised that their pets were showing SM symptoms. More breeders started MRIing their dogs through low cost schemes that had been largely ignored. These schemes found that over 50% of these young breeding dogs with no symptoms as yet already had SM.
The owner of the BIS dog that was SM affected, a fact widely known as when he was first diagnosed she had shown the scan & certificate to other exhibitors at dog shows, was never held to account by Cavalier Club or Kennel Club as she just refused to answer their letters.
Over three years later it looks as if the official MRI scheme may soon be launched, despite cavalier club foot dragging and the fact that the Cavalier Club banned the Health Representative that replaced me from attending an important meeting earlier this year.
If the film makers revisit this breed they may find that nothing much changes in the mind of the dinosaur Cavalier breeder.