A Cavalier film, health related, BBC1........

[Margaret C]

Sorry about the earlier garbled post. I'm not sure what happened.
So to try again.......
The film is about many pure bred breeds, not just cavaliers.

I am one of those who gave interviews to the documentary team despite coming under very considerable pressure not to do so.

Over six years ago I found my beloved champion stud dog, a cavalier who had sired hundreds of puppies, had produced SM affected offspring. A year later he started screaming with neck pain & he had to be put to sleep two months later.
I have working ever since to try & get breeders to recognise that SM is a threat to our breed.

There are wonderful breeders in the UK who have been scanning their cavaliers for many years now. They are mainly occasional breeders with two or three bitches & they are often on limited incomes. They are people who really love their dogs & they have tried so hard to breed healthier cavaliers, quite often being rewarded with disappointing results.
I admire & respect them enormously

Howver the majority of breeders have refused to listen to the scientific evidence and have continued to breed from unscanned dogs.

Things are changing but very slowly.
Two years ago I told the owner of two SM affected dogs, Carol Fowler, that neither the Kennel Club or the breed clubs could change things, they did not have the power.
Carol went to her MP & with his help attended meetings with DEFRA & the KC until finally a meeting including geneticists, researchers, breeders & KC representatives was organised by the Companion Animal Welfare Council.

There has been a marked change of attitude to the problem of SM since that meeting. Many of the regional club committees have now started to arrange subsidised MRIs for their members.
Why are the Kennel Club & the cavalier clubs so defensive about the documentary
Is it because so much of what breeders think & do is difficult to explain to the ordinary man in the street. How can they understand why some breeders will risk breeding litters of dogs that have painful lives, simply to produce one puppy that may win in the show ring?

I have come to the conclusion that the majority of breeders will only consider health issues when outside scrutiny, public opinion and/or mandatory rules force them to do so.

I believe that nothing will change unless the pet buying public is informed about hereditary problems in pure bred dogs. They need to know that they should ask breeders to show certificates that prove that health tests have been done & breeding protocols followed.

Margaret C

[Karlin]

I have come to the conclusion that the majority of breeders will only consider health issues when outside scrutiny, public opinion and/or mandatory rules force them to do so.

That's why a cornerstone of this board has been open discussions of health issues, a library of health related material, advice on finding health-focused breeders. Good breeders always welcome an informed puppy buyer and someone who actually cares about the time and care they put into breeding healthy dogs -- and their ability to show their results.

Pet owners have a very powerful role to play in protecting breed health. If YOU ask for the certificates, the clearances, the information on lines; if YOU educate yourself to know when what is said is evasive, to check the online databases to verify what is said is true; then you put some breeders under an unwanted spotlight, and push more and more to doing the testing that produces the certs. Remember that pets come from the same litters as the show dogs so health should be important to all; breeders should also feel able to ask for this information, yet many say they are made to feel other breeders' words must be taken on trust. This makes it very hard for breeders to talk openly to other breeders.

Moves to create open pedigree databases with health information are very welcome but do not have wide support from cavalier breeders at this time. Let's hope we can say 'yet'.

Most industries and sectors are very poor at self-regulation. Indeed I cannot think of one that is good at it.

I think this documentary will probably indicate dog breeding needs more transparency and outside scrutiny to benefit the committed breeders, puppy buyers, and especially, the dogs.

[Bet]

Could I mention that the British Veterinary Association /Kennel Club are currently considering the introduction of a Heart Testing Schemefor 4 Breeds of Dogs ,including the Cavalier
A meeting will be held on 15-9-08
if the Scheme is adopted ,results will be Published in the Quarterly Breed Registration Supplement andwill appear on the Progeny's Registration Certificate

Additionally, the KC is looking at ways by which Breeders could access Health Results of Dogs /Bloodlines ,
This service will be available to Breeders and Pet Owners

I do hope the Makers of the Film to be being shown on BBC TV will make this Momentous Fact known to the Viewing Public

I really do have my doubts though ,I have Private E-Mails with the Producer of this Film ,and her comments are so Biased about the Cavalier Breed unfortunately.
She does'nt seem to be able to accept the fact of the Revolutionary Research taking place at the here in Britain Animal Health Trust by Dr S Blott into the SM and MVD Problems in the Cavalier Breed,with funding from the Kennel Club of £100,000

I hope all this will be being passed onto to Cavalier Pet Buying Public .

At the moment what more can be being done

The money is there for the Research ,Breeding Guidelines will soon be in place ,so as I said hopefully this Film will not be giving a Biased Picture of the Cavalier Breed

Bet

[Ruth]

Well perhaps if the film makers are concerned for the breed they may donate some of the profits to the research.

If anyone has the ear of the Producers, I would love for them to do an expose of the Puppy Farming Industry.

Ruth

[Karlin]

Could I mention that the British Veterinary Association /Kennel Club are currently considering the introduction of a Heart Testing Schemefor 4 Breeds of Dogs ,including the Cavalier
A meeting will be held on 15-9-08
if the Scheme is adopted ,results will be Published in the Quarterly Breed Registration Supplement andwill appear on the Progeny's Registration Certificate

That is fantastic news, Bet! Thanks so much for that update. I know many will welcome this move if it gets passed.

[Ruth M]

I really welcome this documentary - even if it is biased and sensationalist! Surely being informed in any way is better than having no knowledge at all. When I was searching for a cavi a couple of years ago - I researched well before buying - Ken Town was my bedside reading for weeks! However of all the literature I read I NEVER came across SM - if I had would it have made a difference? Probably not - but at least I would have been aware and alert to possible symptoms.
Now, equipped with SM knowledge - I can care for Tilly (21 months - 'early onset' SM - fab clarification by the way - thx) and I feel in a much better position as I decide on another cavalier.
Thank you for keeping us so well informed.
Ruth.

[Karlin]

If it is felt this documentary offers a biased version of the dog breeding industry, I would place on the other 'biased' side, the breeders with whom many of us have argued over many years now, who never circulated information on SM even after it was identified over a decade ago as a serious and growing breed problem by several neurologists seeing more and more cavaliers with the problem (how many breeder websites note the problem?); who consistently said the research figures were knowingly inflated in order to enable a prominent researcher to get her PhD (yes really -- as laughable as this is, this was stated publicly by a prominent UK breeder very involved with the breed club); who have said that the research was all flawed, that the problem was only in a few lines, that there was no point in MRIing, that the condition might simply be normal in the breed (having your brain forced into your spinal canal is not generally considered an acceptable 'normal' condition), That those of us with dogs with SM have made it up, that those of us with multiple dogs with SM have made it up and have psychological problems (even though they were MRI-confirmed and the breeders knew this), that their lines were clear and they had no intention of MRIing, that threatened owners of young symptomatic dogs with lawsuits if they revealed their kennel name of the dog ever or who refused to help pay for the decompression surgery as a health issue (as per their own contract!) if the person ever revealed the kennel name, and most disgustingly, who knowingly *continue to breed dogs that they know have SM, which have been MRId and are symptomatic in the ring, simply because they are winning championships*. And on the MVD side, that recommend pet buyers take puppies from dogs they *know* were bred outside the MVD protocol, with no heart clearances on the parents, simply because their breeder friends are selling those pups. And then there are the well known breeders that buy puppies from such litters for their own breeding programmes, despite their unknown heart health. The UK breed club's own heart expert Simon Swift has told the breed club their MVD rates have not improved in a decade of having the MVD protocol because so few of them follow it and so few get meaningful cardiologist clearances rather than meaningless vet clearances on their dogs. If prominent club member breeders disregard the protocol because they believe they know better, even while advocating everyone else follow it, how many do you think actually use it? Might the end result not be obvious from the poor MVD rates that continue in the breed clubs tested dogs, according to Simon Swift?).

The problem is that many of these actions remain totally hidden and so such biases are never seen and understood. These biases have been directly affecting the breed, and puppy buyers who end up with ill dogs with costly, tragic conditions, now for quite some time. So I am quite ready for a different 'biased' view to be shown, if it is actually pro breed and dog health.

I so, so admire the breeders of all breeds who have continued to focus on health. Many of them are regularly, publicly attacked on discussion lists and elsewhere -- you see it in many breeds, not just cavaliers. But the atmosphere is already changing for cavaliers because of the meetings Margaret notes -- for the first time, I believe the breeders who have tried to downplay the problem have heard from their own 'neutral' experts that the breed is in serious trouble. And there is growing public pressure from better educated puppy buyers to do something.

I'll be interested to watch the documentary and see what the biases, if any, on both sides are.

[Ashley]

Oh I'll need to set a wee reminder to watch this one.

[Bet]

Since Margaret C has made public that she is taking part in this Film ,and she is a Member of the UK CKCS Club Committee ,are her views her own that she has just Posted on the List,or those of the UK CKCS Club Committee?

Bet

[BobbyPuppy]

For those ordinary folk who simply want to find a healthy Cavalier puppy and so read around the subject, looking into heart problems and SM, my experience last year indicated that it is a real struggle to find breeders who are genuinely focused on what is best for the Cavalier: the longest healthiest life possible.

I had some lengthy private correspondence with Karlin last year when a leading person in the Cavalier world put me in touch with a breeder (also long-established and highly regarded in the Cavalier world) who could not even show me a heart certificate for either of the pups' parents: she suggested that I paid for the bitch to be heart tested at the vets. She laughed off the topic of SM. I went back to the Senior Cavalier lady who had put me in touch with the breeder - she knew exactly what was going on and offered no solution or apology.

Why can't there be a list of breeders who are willing to follow correct heart and SM testing? Why does the ordinary person have to investigate and probe into breeders' practices?

Yes there are some wonderful breeders. But my God there are people saying how much they love the cavalier but are 1) focused on the money each litter produces - considerable when many charge £850+ per pup
and/or 2) are simply too focused on how the puppy looks at the expense of its health.

I have been to many classes where breeders (again I know they do not represent all breeders) meet and also train Cavaliers and found them incredibly nasty and catty about other people's dogs. One woman told me that Sam, my Blenheim, was a very sorry example of a cavalier because of his freckles. I know all breeders are not like this but there is certainly a large amount of silly women with too much time on their hands, driving around the country with their poor cavaliers caged up in the back of the car panting and uncomfortable, then forced into the indignity of going to shows where all the dogs yelp and bark all day in an agitated state whilst they are brush and preened. Why oh why?????

Expose these people who breed and are focused mainly on showing and their own rather puerile enjoyment. Cavaliers deserve to be given the best chance of a long happy life, not driven to show after show - their parents chosen purely because they will be a good show dog and certainly not judged on the length of their nose!!