All Rounder
Woulda, shoulda, coulda- a game everyone plays and is made miserable by.
Nela, your baby was already born, it's not as if you commissioned his breeding. You are committed to giving him whatever care he may come to need. You love him.
It's the most any pup can wish for. Now, I have a very important question for you:
where the heck are the pictures?
~Denise and Clancy, Dillon
All Rounder
Puck is happy to have found a home with you! I assume Puck did not come from the breeder who showed you counterfeit medical reports (I think you had mentioned this in another thread)?
Dog Star
Hello Nela. Dag Nela. Ik kom uit Belgie.Heb je hem naar puck van de petteflet genoemd? Ken je dat boek van annie mg shmidt? Anywho back to english
user
I just wanted to say welcome to Cavalier Talk and you are very brave. It must feel so much better now knowing we are all here to support you knowing the "truth". Among your friends, family, and acquantinces, you can now help show off your Cavalier and educate others about them. Everywhere I take Coco I am asked where I got her from, etc. I take every opportunity I get to talk about this breeds' problems and what we can do as buyers to help.
Administrator
Site Admin & Top Dog
Actually, it is not hard at all. This point was made when advice was sought about finding a breeder who health tests in Holland in the first place. It was noted that this is one of the BEST countries in which to find scanning breeders, because there is a very large group of breeders around the Netherlands who have been working with Clare Rusbridge for years and have several generations now of scanned dogs bred according to the SM protocol. Margaret passed along a list of these contacts. The Dutch breeders have been central to SM research for many years now -- at least 6 -- and their results have given very strong evidence that breeding AxA produces a high degree of A puppies. Breeding AxD produces a smaller number. Breeding DxD has not amongst that group produced any As as far as I know from recent statistics. Sins posted the statistics in a recent thread that is quite relevant to this one.It cant be easy in holland to find someone who mri's.
She also noted that the cost of a puppy from a scanning breeder in the UK is all of about £100 more than from a non scanning breeder and in many cases is the same.
The deductible for a single visit to the vet or neurologist if someone has insurance is about £50 on average. So two visits to the neurologist and you have already begun to lose out .
Every puppy of course deserves to be loved but no one should then bend logic to argue that a particular cavalier puppy needs to be given a home simply because it has been born. If one person didn't buy it, another would, and would love it just as much. I have yet to see a home that didn't love a cavalier puppy wherever it came from. Nor do breeders often end up with unsold puppies -- they just reduce the price till they are gone. But supporting breeders who do not health test and worse -- breeders who knowingly decide not to, in a country that has extremely cheap MRIs (lower even than the UK for cavalier breeders!) is like kicking this breed in the stomach (actually a better metaphor, given the hideous pain of SM, is in the head). Buying from a poor quality breeder sends a loud and clear message that breeding for health matters zilch because some -- most -- buyers will always buy the puppies eventually. Why should breeders bother with health at all, if even informed buyers choose to abandon any concern for health in either an individual puppy or the breed?
The purchase of an individual puppy is never an isolated incident that can be rationalised as a personal, private decision that does not affect the breed or other puppies. It has direct impact on so many levels as has been discussed here so many times.This poor breed has many admirers and too few real friends. This time, the breed yet again, lost. That can only happen so many times before the game is over and cavaliers are a memory.
Please do not say this the breeder who lied about the heart certs.
user
Like I said, I had every intention of buying from an MRI-scanning breeder. We called the breeders on the list that Margaret gave us that were still breeding. (I believe one or two stopped from that list though I did have a few extra MRI-scanning breeders so I might be confusing them - I didn't think to note them but I can probably look in my notes to see if I wrote anything down so you can edit your list for future reference) No one had any blenheim girls and the lowest price found was 1000 euros for a boy. I, myself, would be willing to pay that price for a puppy. However, that decision wasn't mine to make as I am solely dependent on my boyfriend (I do not work). The 1000 bothered him. He felt that was a lot of money (and I agree that it is a large amount of money just I don't see monetary value on living creatures) just to buy the puppy but then, on top of it, when he realized that we could still get unlucky and pick out a puppy that would eventually get SM anyway, there was just no convincing him. I guess he just didn't realize the value, nor the significance of the high percentage of cavaliers with SM. He did say that when they found out more, and could develop a test to screen them or make the chance of a cavalier getting SM almost non-existant, then he'd be more open to the idea. However, for him, at this time, he just didn't see the purpose in spending so much on the unknown. Though I understood that it greatly reduced the risk, it was not enough to convince him. It's very hard for me to understand myself because, on one hand, my boyfriend didn't want to spend so much on the initial price yet, on the other hand, he has every intention on giving him the best we could, which will be expensive and I expect vet care to be even more expensive since the parents weren't scanned. I don't quite comprehend his logic, all I know is that it came down to a straight 'no' as in 'Don't expect me to spend over a thousand dollars for a puppy'
Once faced with a categoric no, my decision came down to having a puppy or not having one. The wisest decision would most likely have been to stay away from cavaliers and look into another breed. The problem is, I was already absolutely smitten by this breed. I didn't want another kind of dog. I wanted a small companion that I could easily train and felt comfortable with. I wanted a kind of dog that really bonds with its people and is very friendly and easy-going. This is my first puppy and I really insisted on having a dog that is good for beginners and that wouldn't mind me being all over him because of my own personal issues. I haven't gone out on my own in over a year because of serious social anxiety resulting from a traumatic experience and simply refuse to medicate. I 'needed' this puppy and I admit, I absolutely panicked at the thought of not being able to have a dog. The dog was my last attempt at staying off the medicine. Of course, the puppy is primarily a family member but he does bring a whole lot more to me than being just a dog. This is what I mean by having made that decision as a purely emotional one on my part. Which, in the end, isn't too nice for a breed as a whole and it was really afterwards that it really sank in and I spent the rest of the time fighting back tears.
In the end, it wasn't a lack of information. I had my information, I had breeders, we contacted those breeders. I don't know if it was the unexpected prices, or him not really grasping just how seriously common the illness is or what... We just didn't see eye to eye on this. Unfortunately, that ended up with the breed getting caught in the middle. Again, I should have, could have, walked away from the breed but i made the selfish decision to experience the breed. Good and bad. I could only hope that if Puck gets ill, this will show my boyfriend exactly how serious it is and will get him to understand more in the future. Meanwhile, we will love Puck and give him the best on a day to day basis. I will cherish every moment with him and hope that I can make the best decisions for him in the future.
Ps: I think some breeders reacted very negatively to my boyfriend because he has a slurred speech and they automatically assumed he was heavily handicapped and could not care for a dog. This also set him off so maybe he just felt so uncomfortable calling that he wanted this to be over sooner than later and just got fed up of the whole thing which caused him to make more impuslive and emotional decisions. I don't know. I am still trying to figure out what happened because one minute he was onboard, the next he had completely changed his mind... Like I said, it's very hard for me to explain something I don't quite comprehend myself.
Thank you again for your kind, stern, but always polite and respectful words.
user
Hallo Blondie,
Mijn Nederlands is niet goed! Mijn inburgeringscursus is heel slecht! Did we get him from...? I didn't understand sorry. I do not know the book. Does it come in english or french?
I will post Puck's pictures in the appropriate section.
user
I forgot to mention but Puck's parents are over 5 years old (his grandpa was also on site and he's 9 and symptom free though he did have small cataracts but I thought this might be more related to being older?) and symptom free though I understand that this doesn't mean he is free of SM as well. Basically this breeder (from what she told me so of course this is only hearsay) was one that was waiting to see results to see if she'd get on board or not but got frustrated with things and decided to jump ship.
Administrator
Site Admin & Top Dog
I understand you had intentions -- that is what is so sad and deeply frustrating about this situation. If an educated buyer is in the end swayed more by immediate gratification and the argument to themselves that they deserve a puppy enough that cost can override whether a breeder bothers to do adequate testing to give every puppy the best chance of a long and pain free life, then what hope does this breed have?
Right now, going on the examples set by most breeders and by the majority of puppy buyers, very little.
The Kennel Club in the UK has finally begun to recognise how truly stark the situation is by supporting some CKCS health initiatives that require public sharing of health results, rather than let many breeders do as they do now and continue as a secretive cabal.
I would have thought the direct and damning evidence of going to a breeder who handed over obviously forged health certs would have been the kind of stunning evidence to persuade anyone, no matter how indifferent or doubting, of the risks, the fraught situation for the breed where supposedly 'caring' owner/breeders lie and deceive, and of the duplicity of some breeders who breed for the money and obviously only wish to dump their puppies into the market as fast as possible. What that breeder did is prosecutable in most countries as fraud: a *serious crime*.
Instead in this case, knowing and observing all this first hand, and decrying it publicly in another thread, has galvanised a purchase! I simply cannot understand this situation. On behalf of the dogs, the breed, the board, those of us with sick dogs, the many here and elsewhere who donate money to Rupert's Fund and other CKCS health causes (the foetal tissue fund, Margaret's body donation fund, the DNA research, the MVD projects etc) even when they are often short of money for themselves: I cannot, cannot understand it.
I can however understand your guilt, but I find it truly insulting as the owner of this board that someone would then state the reason they wanted to confess was to have everyone support them if and when they end up with a sick dog, having totally ignored everything so many here work so hard for on behalf of the breed, and everything the site stands for. That is the additional slap in the face. I am sure it felt a relief to get the guilt off your chest publicly but the reasons stated for doing so are just as selfish as the original purchase. It isn't as if this was a rescue situation -- it was simply a cheaper purchase for immediate gratification in the face of all this breed suffers from, and direct support to that whole vile system that has damned this breed to so many health issues. For those of us with dogs suffering from SM and MVD, who have watched them die from these conditions, it is just beyond belief that an informed buyer would support such a breeder.
Go watch the videos I have on www.smcavalier.com of affected cavaliers. That is what such a decision made knowingly ultimately says is OK.
No one here condemns the person who bought from a poor breeder because they were uninformed, knew nothing about the health issues, didn't realise there were problems or that breeders could so devastatingly exploit this breed, had never heard of SM, whose breeder avoided mention of the problems -- many of us began in that position because we trusted that all breeders care about their dogs and the breed, breed to high standards, are meticulous about health and keep their dogs in the home in loving surroundings. Sadly, not often enough true, any one of these things much less all.
Buyers control the future of this breed through where they choose to buy their puppies. Support the unethical, indifferent-to-health breeder that lives off excuses for not doing much about health, and the system perpetuates. It is why heart disease is endemic in the breed already and cuts several years off cavalier life expectancy. Now SM is moving into the same place. Puppy buyers cannot any longer dupe themselves into the believing the lie that the problem, this devastating, serious, horrific problem of two major appalling life-shortening painful health issues in this breed, is the responsibility of breeders alone. The problem lies with every single decision of where to buy a puppy as much as it does with the breeders.
If we don't care about where we buy NOW, the breed will NOT be here for our children to buy. Most of the researchers I have talked to feel that is about the viable timeline left for this breed if people continue to do nothing -- or actively support the continued spread of this problem by buying knowingly from breeders who do not scan and have no idea at all what the SM status of their dogs is (UK breeders have found about half their dogs scan with syrinxes at breeding age so the problem is simply massive).
user
Got notice of this message from Muffin via my email but couldn't find it so I am cleaning up the html and reposting here to reply to it:
"Hi Nela
Thank you for being honest but I don’t quite understand what you mean. Have you just bought Puck from a breeder who doesn’t health test but has happy clean healthy looking dogs or is Puck actually ill already & from some kind of dreadful breeder with dogs in a terrible condition?Have you seen his mother?I have read hundreds of advertisements for Cavaliers the last few weeks & not seen one that has anything more than Heart Tested parents, the majority don’t test even for that & non have had parents MRI tested for more sinister things, if it’s the same in your country I can see that you felt like taking a chance if the puppy & the establishment looked ok.I wish you luck with Puck & hope you will post a photo & keep us updated."
Hi Muffin, I bought Puck from a breeder that doesn't scan and doppler test. He seems healthy but of course, that doesn't mean that he will always be. I did see both his parents (the mother owned one dog, the daughter the other, and they came from top of the line MRI-scanning, Doppler-scanning breeders) and they were in very good condition and they were older. The dogs had vet checks and were declared healthy and symptom-free but not tested in the full way they should. I had been able to locate some breeders that scanned and Margaret had sent me a short list as well though. Many had stopped breeding and those still breeding didn't have puppies available with the exception of one. However, like I mentioned, it was at a price the boyfriend was not willing to accept and the others were selling them for just as much and more as well. I cannot say that it was because we couldn't find scanning breeders.
Thank you.
Ps: Pictures posted in the puppy thread.
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