Ronnoc is Connor backward, BTW -- a lot of breeders run their name in reverse in the UK and Ireland. Another famous old Irish kennel was Tnegun -- Nugent backwards.
Pretty much every cavalier will eventually go back to champions and some of the well known English dogs and lines in particular, simply because they are all descended from only 6 or 7 dogs and the breed wasn't really introduced to any degree in the US until the 60s, and then mostly from an initial small range of imported English dogs, according to breed histories.
This is why the gene pool is so narrow, and also why breeding is so tricky with this breed -- because already close relatives were bred together just to develop the breed, that means the potential for genetic negatives in the breed started early on. Many cavaliers continue to be very closely line bred (eg to related dogs, with many of the same dogs appearing in the same line of one dog, and often on both dam and sire sides). The degree of relatedness in a dog -- how many of its ancestors are closely related genetically -- is called a breeding coefficient. The higher the breeding coefficient, the closer the line breeding and the higher the concentration of similar genes and to many minds, the more at risk a cavalier is of having genetic problems show. I think the recommendation is for the breeding coefficient not to be higher than around 20%. Many cavaliers are above 40% :shock:. Many breeders try to lower the breeding coefficient of their dogs by outcrossing to other lines or more distant lineages, so that the same dog isn't in the recent generations of a pedigree for example. In Sweden I believe the national CKCS club forbids close line breeding, eg of siblings or of parents and offspring. Here's more info on breeding coefficients and a link to a pedigree database that also gives coefficients for each dog, if enough information is available:
http://www.cavaliertalk.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=233
At the same time, line breeding helps develop a distinct line for a breeder and a skilled breeder knows how best try to carefully select for good qualities while limiting the negative genetic effect this might have. So there's nothing intrinsically wrong with line breeding, but you need to know what you are doing.
All of this is also one of the things to watch for with puppy farm and BYB dogs. What you want are dogs from good lines in the parentage and granparents. Further back, it's not necessarily indicating anything as nearly any backyard-bred cavalier will start to hit well known lines and champions in the great grandparents or further back. Hence in the US, BYBs and brokers for BYB or puppy farm dogs typically claim their dogs are "descended from champion stock" or "descended from imported English/Irish dogs". No reputable breeder makes such claims because the claims are so meaningless.
A reputable breeder will point you to the recent generations, as proof of a strong and thoughtful breeding programme. They will be proud of all the generations but they will not try to claim champions back in the mists of time.
After I got my two boys from a reputable breeder I read far more and learnbed far more than I did the first time out. Now, I would be not only looking for the health clearances and the MRI status (for syringomyelia) for the dam and sire, but I'd also be interested in knowing breeding coefficients and looking for low coeficients, and would like to see really good, longlived quality dogs in close generations rather than with lots of intervening generations.
I'd also be looking for skull shapes that might not be considered 'winning' head shapes right now but which I, along with some researchers and breeders, think give a dog a much better chance of not having SM and having plenty of room for its brain. There's no scientific proof for this but I have seen some striking MRIs for affected and clear dogs.
I've been crazy for cavaliers for three years now and have seen many dogs from many lines -- and I still would not be able to pick out a really superb breed example. The fact that I couldn't do this -- though it is pretty easy to spot the poor breed examples-- and the difficulty of getting my poor head around how breeding coefficients and genetics work underlines to me the time and effort it takes to get to know the breed well enough to even consider breeding (as Bruce has pointed out, generally you want to be mentored for a couple of years before feeling ready to breed and then only with the help of a mentor). It's also why I really admire the good breeders who are so committed to geting the best possible mix of health, conformation and temperament.
On the flip side, running Irish Cavalier rescue means I see a LOT of BYB and puppy farm cavaliers as those are the majority that come in, regardless of whether they have their IKC papers (I cannot stress enough how little a good registration means outside of indicating that at least you have a better chance of having found a good breeder -- it just takes a lot of research and legwork to find a good breeder with the proper registration being the most basic starting point). Every dog is of course to be cherished, and I am not talking about any dog being 'better' than another simply because of a pedigree, but what I hope is that people will learn where to spend their money if they are buying a cavalier, and how to avoid the scammers.
I am working on a post for the library that will walk through all these kinds of things -- to help people figure out whether the things any given breeder is saying actually mean anything and to better spot the good ones.
