Another reason to pick a Ruby??!

[cecily]

I'm not sure this has _ANY_ basis but our vet reckons that Rubies are the hardiest out of the four colourings. In his experience he says he's seen more elderly rubies that don't pick up illnesses as easily as the other 3. He put black and tans next and tris at the bottom (sorry! ). I've never heard this before and I'm sure there are millions of exceptions but has anybody heard the like before?

[estelle]

Where do the blenheims come then??

[cecily]

He said 3rd.

[*Pauline*]

Interesting. He did say "in his experience", maybe the rubies in your area are strong. I was told that Blenheims are best as the gene pool is bigger as there are more Blenheims than any other colour. I'm sure it depends on a lot of things.

[Lisa_T]

I remember reading that wholecolours are slightly less susceptible to the inherited difficulties of the breed because their gene pool is wider than particolours- ie, two wholecolours can potentially have a litter of all four colours, but two particolours will always breed a particolour. But I guess it's down to the genetic heritage and the lines of each individual dog. I've also read that bitches tend to be less severely affected by MVD than dogs- they get it, but it seems to progress less slowly. Even if both of these facts are purely anecdotal, it was enough to persuade me to go for wholecolour bitches, despite the fact that I think partis are gorgeous. Then again, Tuppence (a blen) made it to just short of nineteen years, so.... Who knows?

[Nisha]

when you say third for blenhiem do u mean 3rd hardiest like the 2nd easiest colour to pic up health problems or do you mean 3rd hardiest as in the 3rd out of the four 2 pick up health problems (just before ruby)...sorry if im confusing you!!

[cecily]

That's ok Nisha!

According to the vet the Rubies were the strongest followed by black and tans. Blenheims were the third strongest (or 2nd weakest if you like) and tricolours the most delicate! (I tell you my tricolour would have had something to say about that if she were still around! Although it does sound like there's a contradiction in there somewhere...)

I'm sure if there IS any difference between the colours it's fairly negligable He hadn't done any scientific tests or anything, although interesting that someone else had heard it also.

[Lisa_T]

H'mm. I think this is an interesting question and one I'd like to explore further. If I put together a little questionnaire including sex, colour etc and health status, would people fill it in? Then we could see for ourselves, based on the not inconsiderable sample of dogs owned by this board. After all, most of the 'official' lists are filled with dogs on the show circuit etc- this board could probably be called more representative of 'ordinary' pet owners as well as those involved in showing and breeding. I'm quite happy to do the analysis myself if people are willing to participate!

[judy]

This converation interests me because just this morning i was reading something about whole color cavaliers being more prone to a form of epilepsy (idiopathic). I will paste the short abstract below. The last sentence of the quote is especially sad. I would like to talk about this in another thread.

There was another place where i read this morning that whole colors had a higher incidence of something, don't remember, will try to go back and find that link too. I was just interested in reading about inbreeding this morning and that's how i happened to see the thing about whole colors. Here is one of the two things i read:

J Vet Intern Med. 2004 Sep-Oct;18(5):673-8. Related Articles, Links

Inheritance of occipital bone hypoplasia (Chiari type I malformation) in Cavalier King Charles Spaniels.

Rusbridge C, Knowler SP.

Stone Lion Veterinary Centre, Wimbledon, London, UK. neuro.vet@btinternet.com

Occipital bone hypoplasia with foramen magnum obstruction and secondary syringomyelia (SM) is a common condition in the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel (CKCS) that is similar to human Chiari type I malformation. A worldwide family tree of more than 5,500 CKCSs spanning a maximum of 24 generations was established by obtaining pedigree information from 120 dogs diagnosed with SM secondary to occipital bone hypoplasia. The ongoing study showed 6 of 8 great grandparents of all affected dogs could be traced back to 2 female ancestors so that all 8 were descended from one or the other or both. The disease appears to be more severe and have an earlier onset with increased inbreeding, especially when breeding from affected dogs. The family tree of idiopathic epilepsy (IE) appears to be a different subset of the CKCS population, although some overlap was observed. Idiopathic epilepsy is more frequent in lines originating from whole-color dogs. Selection for coat color is believed to have influenced the development of both occipital hypoplasia with secondary SM and IE. In addition, breeding guidelines to reduce the incidence of mitral valve disease have placed further pressures on the gene pool.

[Karlin]

Clare Rusbridge is one of the leading experts on SM of course too. She has done some ground-breaking work on epilepsy in dogs generally and if I am remembering correctly was the first to identify the gene for epilepsy in one breed (not cavaliers). So I am sure her clinical facts are correct when she makes this statement on wholecolours as she would be very up to date on canine epilepsy generally.

I think what a vet sees would be closely related to lines a vet is seeing in a particular area and perhjaps the fact that blenheims and tris are far more common from puppy farms/BYBs because they are the more popular colours. Also consider that any vet is likely to see many times more particolours for the same reason and thus see far more illness, comparitively, than wholecolours.

There is some info on health in whole and particolours on Sheila Smith's breed history if someone wants to check that. I cannot remember if originally, it was partis or wholes who were considered less genetically diverse and less healthy as well and some introductions of one into the other helped improve this -- I believe wholes used to be considered more prone to illness and partis were bred with them back in the 50s-60s to try and improve this, though that means more mismarked wholes.

I have never heard of there being any difference in incidence of MVD thru the colours nor by gender; I think it is equal. I think Clare has refined her conclusions since from the final sentence -- I don;t know if she believes selection for coat colour had any influence on SM development now so much as 'popular sire' syndrome, where a few popular sires are excessively used and thus excessively influence the genes within the breed.