Senior Citizens

[Arne]

I have had a Ruby who lived to be 14 plus, a B & T who lived to be 12 and my current B & T is 12.

Whole colours are rarer so naturally they wont be so many of them as oldies compared to the more numerous parti colours.

[merlinsmum]

Its such a great thing to see the oldies, gives us all hope in spite of the all the health concerns the breed has.

[Lisa_T]

Has anybody else noticed that most of these oldies are blens?

Thats a really interesting observation! I wonder if it is true everywhere? Any breeders that track lines etc out there that know if it might be true in anyway?

Actually I read in several places that the wholecolours can be sturdier, and apparently Cecily's vet told her the same thing. Ditto re males being more likely to suffer early onset MVD that females. Probably completely anecdotal and no basis on fact- but there's no denying that Amber's BT granny is going strong at 11 and had shown no health problems at all until very recently.... it was enough to make me go for two wholecolour bitches.

[Karlin]

A long time ago there was some basis in fact for this as fewer wholecolours were bred and the gene pool was narrow -- however particolours were bred in to make the pool wider and improve the robustness, from my understanding -- hence you do get a lot of mismarked wholecolours as a result from the particolour lines bred in.

Bet would probably know the answer to this! She had some trouble logging on but should be dipping in now and again.

I don't think there's any link between colour and health. Though that said almost all the cavaliers I know of with EFS have been rubies but that may just be an anomaly.

[enchantingdragon]

What a lovely tribute to the well lived Cavaliers on this board Im looking forward to seeing more beautiful seniors who are young at heart and I hope every Cavalier on this board will make eligibility on this section

[Barbara Nixon]

Monty is 11 years and 4 months. He doesn't like his photo taken, so always gets red eyes.

[Barbara Nixon]

Izzy is 9 years and almost 9 months (He never reached the 9 months, as he died on March 17th 2007).

[Arne]

I thought I had posted photos of my oldies but I must be getting old myself since I cant find them.



Arne the B & T aged 12 and Jassy aged about 8 at least.

Now for my Bridge Angels


Jamie who lived to 12



Biggles who lived to 14 and 1/2. Bet, I hope you see this one.



Merlin who lived to about 9 and a half. He was so full of life that he worn out too soon.

[Princess Annabel]

Here's Annie again, a new pic.

[ceedah]

This is Vanity, age 9...these pictures were taken when she was 8 (her birthday was in February!).





Something that my family has been noticing as she's gotten older (we've never had a Cavalier before) is that her coat seems to be getting thinner. Is this par for the course?

Anyhow, it is really heartwarming to see all these photos here. Vanity has recently been diagnosed with some health problems, though the vet still thinks she'll live into her teens. I hope she'll get to live as full a life as others in this thread.