As Margaret herself has posted,
there was NO breach of confidentiality -- the breeder involved brought her scans to a show and showed them to Margaret and several other people at the time, with no request for confidentiality. It had nothing to do with a research programme and therefore has no connection at all to whether breeder cooperate in sending scans directly to Sarah Blott. Many breeders knew the status of the dog -- even many pet buyers by the time he was made up as a champion! -- and he had produced at least one symptomatic SM puppy as well.
It would be a somewhat different matter if the scans were submitted only to the club, confidentially, and then were leaked.
But even in such a case, one must weigh up the fact that *26 litters* were born to a dog that, according to the woman who was at Geoff Skerritts with the breeder in question at the time of the scan, was told he had one of the the WORST scans for his age that Skerritt, one of the eminent neurologists in the UK, had ever seen -- and he has scanned over 600 cavaliers alone!! To me, to not bring this terrible situation out into the open, even if it did mean violating confidentiality, would make a mockery of the whole point of scanning in the first place, and allow untold suffering to go forward to new generations in full violation of the KC Code of Ethics. At that point, the right moral decision would have been to speak out. But such a situation never arose in the case of this breeder and this dog. The scans were NOT confidential.
The breeder who accompanied the woman to Mr Skerritt is so outraged at what she saw on Pedigree Dogs Exposed -- an outright denial that the dog had SM as well as the revelation of all the litters born SINCE that scan -- that she has signed a formal letter of complaint to the breed club.
Consider this: 26 litters of puppies from a dog with one of the worst scans seen at Geoff Skerritt's hospital, knowingly bred undoubtedly to many other breeder's dogs who were quite aware of this dog's status as it had not been a secret for years.
That is 26 litters of puppies who may suffer hideous pain; 26 litters of puppies that will will spread those genes on making it ever more difficult to address SM in the breed. Not to mention the families that bought pets from those breeders in good faith. All the breeders who knowingly bred and sold puppies involving this sire are in total violation of the Kennel Club code of ethics.
Yet despite so many, many people knowing this dog's status, not one complained to the KC or the breed clubs.
Margaret finally chose to do this. It was one of the most powerful indictments in the film -- mentioned over and over on discussion lists and radio programmes everywhere -- and I think it was absolutely right to name and shame this duplicity.
Owning a dog myself that requires a daily cocktail of drugs to manage his pain from SM, I am nauseated that any breeder -- no, that such a large group of breeders -- would knowingly buy in to such a perverted, disgusting approach to breeding, the breed, and to the relationship of breeder with a trusting public that buys puppies from such people.
Sad to say I am aware that this is not an isolated story either. For lack of time in the documentary, there are other stories that could have gone in, involving club breeders and some prominent ones at that, which did not. But the stories and the people involved in them are all available to the show producers and if more need to be named and shamed I am sure they will be. In many of these cases I have seen the direct evidence of what these people do and continue to do. :x Maybe the time will shortly come when a formal list with evidence should be drawn up and presented to the chair of the CKCS Club and other clubs and CC'd to the KC so that some of these people are removed from the club and required to explain their actions.
And there are many, many non club breeders, puppy farmers and people down your own streets (maybe even readers of this post who breed casually
) that are busy committing similarly hideous acts because they do not have a clue about proper breeding and do not health test at all.
This is not just about club breeders -- it is about ALL poor breeding -- but I firmly feel the knowing, deliberate breeding of affected dogs is the most heinous, disturbing act any breeder can commit. Especially a club show breeder well aware of this problem in the breed.
How these people can look at their dogs every morning, I do not know. How can anyone look at the wonderful face of a cavalier, and willfully inflict a life of pain on this breed.