RodRussell
Well-known member
Holy cow! Has hell frozen over, or what? the AKC parent club -- American Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Club (ACKCSC) -- has expanded its formerly one tiny little paragraph about mitral valve diease on its website! Good for them! See it for yourself at http://ackcsc.org/health/hearts.html
Now, the article is a bit defensive, trying to suggest that MVD just might not be genetic in the Cavalier, and it lumps CKCSs in with unspecified "certain breeds" as having early-onset mitral valve problems. The fact is that MVD is 20 times more prevalent in the Cavalier than the average purebred. The MVD article also includes a gratuitous slap at the health of mixed breeds.
The club does not quite endorse the MVD breeding protocol, but it comes close. Here is what it says about testing and breeding:
"Currently, the recommended practice is to wait until a Cavalier is two years old or older before the first breeding and to know the parents and ancestorial cardiac status. Cavaliers with early onset presentations of MVD (before four years of age) should not be bred and breeders need to work with the guidance of their cardiologists."
Now, I don't know who the ACKCSC is referring to when it says "the recommended practice", because what the club has on its website is not the recommended practice among board certified cardiologists in the USA. For that recommendation, read it at http://tinyurl.com/yj25a7g Nevertheless, the ACKCSC recommendation comes real close to the real thing.
This ACKCSC webpage finally should eliminate any excuse for AKC breeders to claim ignorance of the need for heart testing and abstinence from breeding un-tested, underaged Cavaliers. Thank you, ACKCSC!
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Rod Russell
Now, the article is a bit defensive, trying to suggest that MVD just might not be genetic in the Cavalier, and it lumps CKCSs in with unspecified "certain breeds" as having early-onset mitral valve problems. The fact is that MVD is 20 times more prevalent in the Cavalier than the average purebred. The MVD article also includes a gratuitous slap at the health of mixed breeds.
The club does not quite endorse the MVD breeding protocol, but it comes close. Here is what it says about testing and breeding:
"Currently, the recommended practice is to wait until a Cavalier is two years old or older before the first breeding and to know the parents and ancestorial cardiac status. Cavaliers with early onset presentations of MVD (before four years of age) should not be bred and breeders need to work with the guidance of their cardiologists."
Now, I don't know who the ACKCSC is referring to when it says "the recommended practice", because what the club has on its website is not the recommended practice among board certified cardiologists in the USA. For that recommendation, read it at http://tinyurl.com/yj25a7g Nevertheless, the ACKCSC recommendation comes real close to the real thing.
This ACKCSC webpage finally should eliminate any excuse for AKC breeders to claim ignorance of the need for heart testing and abstinence from breeding un-tested, underaged Cavaliers. Thank you, ACKCSC!
--
Rod Russell