Ollie and Maggie's Craigowl pedigree is not a secret, though I have kept it so for over 6 years. In the past several months in reading many of Normas breed notes and hearing that she has so many healthy, happy Cavaliers i have to set the record straight as that is so misleading to puppy buyers and other breeders. It would have been considerate at the very least if Norma over the past six years that I have had two severally affected Craigowls, would have offered a word of support, a little concern and an all out effort to do everything possible to reduce the chances of it happening again. An MRI may not be the perfect solution, but it lowers the risk, it contributes to valuable research and at the moment it is all we have. That is all I would be asking for. Regards, Sandy Smith
Yes, that is Sandy Smith. I have known of Sandy, and known of her affected cavaliers for about 5 years now -- from participation on some of the very early lists -- and despite having met her twice now, and being in occasional email contact,
I was not aware until very recently that both her affected dogs were of Craigowl breeding. So it is a bit laughable that someone has posted on the comments that she has posted this 'everywhere' as so many of us who actually knew her and are on all those same lists never have read this before and didn't know. Her post above was a reply to that person's inaccurate statement.
Elsewhere in the Dog World comments someone stated that it should be Norma's own business whether she MRIs. But alas, she chose to make this the central topic of a public column on the cavalier breed, thus opening up her policies to scrutiny and comment. Given her profile, and supposed support for people like Sarah Blott who has said over and over that she needs breeders to keep on MRIing (a point that a few other Sarah Blott supporters keep missing! As well as the point that her work so far is based primarily on the initial work by Penny Knowler and Clare Rusbridge and the scans given to them by the vast majority of people, not the little group of some breeders who have decided to withhold them) -- saying that you won't MRI is very controversial and slap in the face to Dr Blott.
I will make a prediction right now that Sarah Blott also will quickly fall the way of ALL researchers so far, and become suddenly a lot less popular, as soon as the true implication of EBVs sinks into some breeders' heads. Many don't yet seem to register that they cannot hide the risk of their lines passing along CM/SM -- the EBVs already indicate incidence because they are based on so many of us already submitting scan results, and on the huge number already held by Penny and Clare, and as more are submitted, the finer tuned the EBVs will become.
That is why ALL owners of a scanned cavalier (or heart tested or eye tested) with a pedigree should please, please submit the information to Dr Blott for inclusion in the EBVs. A lot of breeders will find that just because they do not scan, doesn't mean many others haven't submitted information on their lines, or on dogs in which their lines feature in the near past, thus influencing their own dogs' EBVs.
Ultimately the greater the pool of data, the more precise the EBV, and the genome scan, assuming it is successful , will make the EBVs very precise indeed for risk of inheritance. Submitting test information to Sarah will help the breed and insure that no one can hide behind a 'don't ask, don't tell' no testing policy.
On the full length vs mini scan debate -- all the researchers have noted that almost all dogs with syrinxes have them at the neck, and almost none scan with syrinxes only at the base of the spine. So unless one is MRIing for a full diagnosis and to consider decompression surgery for an affected dog, there really is no reason to do full body scans to get statistically significant information. The funny thing is, the breeders most worried about 'needing' a full scan are typically those who don't MRI to begin with, and complain at paying even as little as £100 for a scan as is. For a full body scan, the cost would have to be significantly more as the full scan takes far more time and resources.