thankyou for all your advice, yes she is crate trained, she did have an infection, which the vet picked up on and has had antibiotics for this, but will get her checked again incase infection is back,. I am planning on getting my boy done, but still decideing wether to let her have 1 litter first, but this wont be for a while yet, so will watch carefully for the signs and seperate.
Oh please -- do not even think of breeding her unless you have properly and responsibly learned about the
serious health issues that MUST be tested for first. We have lots of information here. This breed is teetering on the edge of survival in its current form, due to two very serious and endemic health problems -- MVD and the neurological disease syringomyelia. Indifferent breeding done without testing is what is leading to the demise of the breed and should not be tolerated by anyone who truly cares about cavaliers. MVD affects almost 100% of cavaliers eventually and takes an average of about four years off the breed lifespan. SM affects at least 70% of adults eventually and is one of the most painful diseases know, ONLY be properly testing and following breeding protocols can you help the breed and hope to at least limit the like.lihood of passsing on these painful killer diseases to any offspring. Untested dogs have about a 80% rate of passing on SM because they generally have it and haven't been tested (we have research results posted elsewhere that explain this). Eeven breeding two clear dogs runs the risk of 25% of offspring having SM.
MRIs to test for this cost a few hundred pounds for UK breeders, and close to $1000 in the US or more. Also, no cavalier should be bred until AGE FIVE unless you know the SM and MVD test results of the parents of BOTH breeding dogs who must have been heart clear still at age 5 themselves. If you know the heart and MRI results of ALL FOUR GRANDPARENTS and they are heart clear at 5 and an A grade (with few exceptions) on MRI, then you can consider breeding your female but ONLY after age TWO AND A HALF minimum, also only if she tests clear on the curly coat/dry eye DNA test or the sure tests clear, and also tests clear for eyes and patellas and has a good hip score. So you will need to wait over two years to bgreed any cavalier and then only iif you have the clear test results of all four parents of sire and dam; otherwise you must wait til she is at least age 5 and still MVD and SM clear (only about 50% of dogs may be clear of one or the other disease by that age, sadly; eg half of dogs will already have one or the other or both diseases by age 5).
Please, please do not risk inflicting any more suffering on the breed and all the puppies, without doing all these things. If you are interested in breeding, please take the time to really learn about the breed and then who test and work with other responsible, testing breeders. (also be aware that pregnancy is a significant health risk to any female -- a far higher death risk than cancer in the breed, for example. There really must be excellent and important reasons to risk your own dog through pregnancy to even begin to consider breeding as so many things can go wrong for her or the puppies or both).
Please also read the posts in our SM/MVD forum so you understand how hideous and costly these diseases are for owners (who may well pursue you legally for affected puppies expecting some contribution towards expensive MRIs and lifelong medications or brain surgery if you did not test at all) and why it is so important to breed ethically or not at all; and also please read the posts on breeding in the Library section. No dog should ever be bred without proper health clearances (a vet CANNOT give these for this breed; they need specialist tests that are costly) and only if there is some good reason to preserve excellent qualities. Just having a nice friendly dog or wanting puppies is never a good reason to breed.
We also do not allow personal breeding discussions here -- so feel free to ask more about the crisis this breed is in and the relationship to responsible breeding, but not personal decisions, please.
You can read more about why we have this policy in the Getting Started section of the board.
Most of us will eventually be dealing with MVD or SM or both (for example, I have had 5 cavaliers, three with SM and two with MVD (the rest will likely end up with MVD over time). If you weren't aware of these conditions, it is important for every cavalier owner to know about and understand them.
You can learn more at
www.cavalierhealth.org,
www.smcavaliers.com,
www.cavaliermatters.org and
www.cavaliercampaign.com