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CMSM results now available on Kennel Club website

Karlin

Administrator
Staff member
The results for dogs tested under the BVA/KC scheme are now available from the Health Tests finder on the KC website.

More info:

http://www.thekennelclub.org.uk/download/13817/HTRF-Breeding-Guidance.pdf

A great step forward -- this was long promised and many decent health-concerned breeders had been frustrated that there was a long delay in making results available (as are test results for all other KC schemes). Some however, wanted results to remain private. Thankfully they were overruled in the case of this particular scheme. An important step for transparency, honesty and the future of the breed. (y)
 
This is great news, anyone searching for a cavalier puppy will, in the years to come, be able to look up the parents' names and see if they are scanned and what their grades are. Most scanning centres will automatically submit the scans to the BVA for grading and send the results to the AHT for inclusion in their EBVs.

Breeders using the cheaper scanning centres, where no official BVA/KC grade is given, will be able to submit their scans for official grading and submission to the EBVs themselves. Old scans are accepted, as long as the quality is acceptable

If a breeder claims their dog is scanned but no result is shown on the KC Health Test Result Finder, then the wise buyers should be wondering why?

If anyone wants to try this out they can look up my Faith............. Wyredell Keeping Faith.

There is still one slight problem that the KC has not sorted out. They are still showing an incorrect date for Faith's age at time of scanning. The scan was done in July 2011 when she was 3 years 11 months. They are displaying her age at the time the scan was graded.
 
Any guesses as to how many of the top 10 stud dogs have MRI results shown?

The real breakthrough will be when breeders scan these genetically critical dogs as a rule, not an exception (if even at all :( ) as they have an overbearing impact on the breed's future -- as breeders who own or use them, and give lip service to being health focused breeders :rolleyes:, know all too well.

That these dogs are not scanned, and/or results not given publicly (so that finding scanned studs remains a huge challenge for truly health focused breeders) says everything about current show breeder priorities for the vast majority: they sadly remain money in pocket. show prestige priorities.

Everyone knows this is an issue. Few will talk about it or push for change.
 
I haven't found any cavaliers with MRIs listed. And I even tried Mareve Indiana. Given that his pups are still out in the world, I would think that Margaret would want the information available for future (dog) generations.

Am I searching wrong?

(I realize that we aren't supposed to post dog's registered names, but I think in this case it should be allowed.)
 
Hi

For interest just run my four girls through and the only thing that showed up was their Inbreeding Coefficient ,a Cavaliers breed average should be 5.3%,
Poppy was 3.5 while Rosie was 4.2 with Lily at 8.9 and Daisy an horrendous 22.3 ,must be a very close " hello brother " family there .

Rgds

Bri
 
Only the cavaliers who have been scanned under the KC/BVA scheme since it started in January 2012 are viewable on the site.
Any scans done previously aren't included.
You should be able to see results for eye tests on most cavaliers.
Sins
 
That can't be right though either (??), as Margaret's dog was scanned in 2011 under the scheme, and is listed (albeit with age at scanning wrong). So must include earlier dogs?

Mareve Indiana wouldn't be included because he was scanned many years ago. Some earlier scans are used if the quality is good enough as Margaret notes but not sure how they make the selection.

The breeding coefficients are fairly useless on the site at the moment and should not be taken as meaningful or correct-- they are calculated only going from a very recent point, not using any historical data at all (as if the breed is only about a decade old or so I think), and hence cavaliers will almost all have coefficients below what would be correct if they were properly calculated. Margaret I am sure can explain the case as I cannot remember the details.

The idea that the average for cavaliers is only 5.3% is farcical -- I think not even believed by the breeders most skeptical about health issues! :lol:
 
That can't be right though either (??), as Margaret's dog was scanned in 2011 under the scheme, and is listed (albeit with age at scanning wrong). So must include earlier dogs?

The Scheme only includes dogs MRI'd before January 2012 if the owner pays to submit their older certificates. I paid £100 to have Faith's scan officially graded and the results recorded.

Mareve Indiana wouldn't be included because he was scanned many years ago. Some earlier scans are used if the quality is good enough as Margaret notes but not sure how they make the selection.

Monty ( Ch. Mareve Indiana ) was never scanned. He died in 2004 before the low cost scans were in place. As he was not insured I could not afford £2,000 to have him MRI'd. When he died I gave his body to Clare Rusbridge for tissue donation and Syringomyelia was confirmed at post mortem.

Most of the really early scans could not be graded under the new scheme as the scanning process has been considerably refined over the years. It took time for the researchers to learn the best way to get the truest picture.

MRIs taken in 2010 & 2011 would probably be worth submitting especially as the fee is returned if the scan is not of a suitable quality for grading.

The breeding coefficients are fairly useless on the site at the moment and should not be taken as meaningful or correct-- they are calculated only going from a very recent point, not using any historical data at all (as if the breed is only about a decade old or so I think), and hence cavaliers will almost all have coefficients below what would be correct if they were properly calculated. Margaret I am sure can explain the case as I cannot remember the details.

The idea that the average for cavaliers is only 5.3% is farcical -- I think not even believed by the breeders most skeptical about health issues! :lol:

With about six founding dogs Cavaliers have been inbred since they were created in 1925. The COI is artificially low because the KC decided to calculate COIs from when they first started keeping information on computers. They therefore counted all the already very inbred cavaliers in 1983 ( I think it was ) as if they were completely unrelated. Add to that a very different non-show population and you get a very unreliable average.

Of course many show bred dogs are mated to close relatives and so have COIs in the teens to twenties. One puppy list coordinator's latest litter had COIs over 30%
 
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Most of the really early scans could not be graded under the new scheme as the scanning process has been considerably refined over the years
When breeders were told this,there were some who had invested heavily in scanning their stock.Anxious to have their scans compliant,many paid to have their dogs rescanned at a scheme compliant venue.They had not expected to be charged £100 if they wanted to have them regraded,so they could appear on the KC healthfinder,so perfectly compliant scans go unrecorded and this,coupled with the delays and doubts regarding publication,left health focused breeders disillusioned and as a result,they are slow to buy into the scheme.
The Scheme only includes dogs MRI'd before January 2012 if the owner pays to submit their older certificates. I paid £100 to have Faith's scan officially graded and the results recorded.
One breeder I know had a litter earlier this year,only the mother of the litter appears on the KC healthfinder.In fact the litter has both parents,all 4 grandparents and six of eight great grandparents Mri'd with no SM.The older dogs will not be regraded,the money will go towards scanning young dogs.
Also only KC registered dogs will appear on the KC healthfinder.
The English kennel club has no mandate to publish results of dogs registered with other kennel clubs.Had I used Holly's IKC reg number,her scan would not have appeared.Her eyes have been tested under a BVA scheme,but the result isn't recorded as I gave the Opthalmologist her IKC cert.
Puppy buyers will need a lot of patience for this healthfinder to build into a useful resource as it's literally straight back to the drawing board with this scheme.
You will still have to approach a breeder,ask for copies of their reports/certs and never assume that because as dog isn't listed,that it hasn't been scanned or that there is some unsavoury reason for not having dogs listed...
Sins
 
You will still have to approach a breeder,ask for copies of their reports/certs and never assume that because as dog isn't listed,that it hasn't been scanned or that there is some unsavoury reason for not having dogs listed...
It is also still possible to have a dog MRI scanned and the results not submitted through to the KC/BVA scheme, thus saving £100.

Maggie
 
Absolutely :); just because an MRI result isn't listed doesn't mean the dog was not scanned. But the flip side over time should be, that there is pressure as well as positive feedback in having dogs scanned and listed -- so that it will increasingly be the case that dogs listed without MRIs probably have not been scanned and therefore may cause puppy buyers and other breeders to hesitate before involvement with that dog's breeder.

They had not expected to be charged £100 if they wanted to have them regraded,so they could appear on the KC healthfinder,so perfectly compliant scans go unrecorded and this,coupled with the delays and doubts regarding publication,left health focused breeders disillusioned and as a result,they are slow to buy into the scheme.

I just don't buy this as an excuse and it truncates the actual history behind the issues (I do of course understand the frustration of not having a larger body of scans).

The truth is that there WAS a scheme for ages -- several years!! -- to create EBVs, and the reality was that breeders did not submit enough scans, or of decent enough quality, to make that scheme viable even though it cost them nothing to do so (often breeders knowingly and deliberately for whatever reason, chose the cheapest scans from centres that they were told many times had lower quality scans, and that people knew quite well, also did not submit them to the existing EBV scheme. Breeders overwhelmingly chose to continue to use those scanning centres over several years.

The researchers behind the original EBV scheme put out many calls, as eventually did the breed club after the issue was raised several times, to please, please submit existing scans. Well before this time I know from a personal conversation with the scanning centre involved that at LEAST 1500 MRIs had been done, almost ENTIRELY for UK breeders, but only a minute proportion of these were ever submitted for the existing EBV scheme.

So few were submitted that the researchers had to announce the scheme shelved at least for the time being, while other schemes involving scans for other diseases for other breeds went ahead as breeders for those other breeds submitted more than enough scans to make their EBV schemes viable. Gradually that initial scheme rolled over to the new BVA/KC scheme.

Meanwhile some breeders were (rightly, but for varied agendas, not always to benefit the dogs) complaining that they feared there was no consistency in grading on scans or quality of how they were taken and wanted an official scheme with an adjudicating panel of neurologists to agree a scan grade. Some clearly were sincere in wanting a decent scheme;others followed the time worn approach of always dismissing the existing approach to a scheme and asking for something else, conveniently postponing their own participation in schemes they said hey would support, if only, if only... :rolleyes:. Yes, there are issues with it, but to complain about cost? -- what is supposed to fund the work of professionals and admin costs of doing all the grading and running of a system? If breeders truly want an honest system that ensures certain standards and consistency of scans, this takes time and money. Why have clubs not stepped up to help fund these costs for breeders? Why are costs being paid by funds such as Rupert's Fund when the clubs contribute nothing and the breeders don't even seem to have the motivation to create a matching fund to support breed health and scanning and the EBV programme?

As for the early scans -- surely any decent breeder will know that they needed to scan from the point scanning was identified as the only way to know whether they had breeding dogs that already had SM? They got valuable information for scans that most of them only paid around £100 for through club scanning days (incredibly cheap for such important information, as opposed to US breeders who would need to pay from 4 to 10 times that amount for a single scan and without any EBV programme).

If nothing else, how could the old scans be added into the new database unless the new scheme were to obtain all the old scan films or CDs (which in most cases were never released to owners or researchers in the first place) and then put them all to the grading panel -- a task that would be very time consuming and costly (even were the films or digital scans to be released for this purpose). Who would pay for this? And again the issue is that most of these scans were done without using the scanning standards since developed, or machines of the correct quality (issues flagged long before the KC/BVA scheme launched yet few changed where they went for scans -- to the centre they knew for years, would no submit scans for research hence to 'risk' of results being public). So, all those scans either cannot be used or if taken at face value, would distort the scheme with some likely inaccurate original grades.

I understand some frustration, but 1) breeders utterly failed to support the original ** free** EBV scheme, which never was able to launch due to lack of a viable number of scans as breeders themselves chose not to submit them, and 2) breeders themselves demanded the new scheme but then many -- same old names, same old breeders in many cases -- worked to undermine it from the very start by complaining about cost, publication and the need to actually have standardised scans from agreed centres -- and they haven't yet explained how they thought the new scheme requiring a panel of neurologists plus admin costs would be paid for (as it is, numerous times it has been paid for by generous pet owners donating to Rupert's Fund!). There is so much positive work that the clubs could do in fundraising to cover submission costs, agreeing to publication and not allowing petty issues to get politicised internally and be dragged out forever.

Why has the so-called health rep for the club, or their little panel of so called health reps, not gone in and sorted out their theoretical issues with this scheme directly? In their place I'd have done this months ago -- surely that's the role of such a panel. Or what role do they serve? Could it be by simply complaining about reasons why they cannot support the BVA scheme while never addressing the issues, they conveniently keep out of the scheme entirely and give members an excuse as well? Why are the health reps instead promoting a scheme whereby results remain secret, outside their own jurisdiction? Extraordinary and one has to say: what a sign of total ineptitude that they cannot apparently work within their own Kennel Club, with their own membership, to save their own breed. :sl*p:

I can only imagine how frustrating all of this is for the many decent breeders out there, many of whom I know you know well, Sins.
 
The Scheme only includes dogs MRI'd before January 2012 if the owner pays to submit their older certificates. I paid £100 to have Faith's scan officially graded and the results recorded.



Monty ( Ch. Mareve Indiana ) was never scanned. He died in 2004 before the low cost scans were in place. As he was not insured I could not afford £2,000 to have him MRI'd. When he died I gave his body to Clare Rusbridge for tissue donation and Syringomyelia was confirmed at post mortem.

...

The COI is artificially low because the KC decided to calculate COIs from when they first started keeping information on computers. They therefore counted all the already very inbred cavaliers in 1983 ( I think it was ) as if they were completely unrelated. Add to that a very different non-show population and you get a very unreliable average.

Of course many show bred dogs are mated to close relatives and so have COIs in the teens to twenties.

Thanks for those clarifications.

I used the online COI database (which I am not sure exists anymore) for many sample dogs in the past, which were calculated using hundreds upon hundreds of dogs, and it was hard to find COIs below 10%. I know from breeders looking for matings that would produce a low COI that this is actually quite challenging to do. Surely the average cavalier COI must be in double digits; at least mid to high teens?

It is misleading to have a COI element on the current KC system, especially without some explanation of how it is calculated, noting that it will be incorrect. :( However many breeders have the software that enables them to do COI calculations themselves and anyone that cares about this will undoubtedly only trust their own calculations.
 
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