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Advance notice of cavalier health survey

Margaret C

Well-known member
Early in February Tania Ledger & I were invited to attend a UK Cavalier Club Health Workshop where we helped to draw up a questionnaire for a cavalier health survey.
It was decided to produce a basic 'census form' which will take place during one week in June.

There is now a notice on the Cavalier Club website about this survey: www.thecavalierclub.co.uk . The Companion Cavalier Club will be encouraging members to fill in the form during the chosen census week.

They are looking for information on cavaliers that are alive between June 2nd to June 9th. One form for each dog. I do very much hope that CT owners here will also be willing to contribute health information, good or bad, so that the survey shows a true picture of the health of our breed. The form is shown here: http://www.thecavalierclub.co.uk/health/survey_13/ckcs_health_survey_2013.pdf and I will add the link to the on-line form when it becomes available.
 
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I hope you receive many answered questionairs for this.
Leo and I will be filling this in when it becomes available

Mel X
 
Is this for all cavaliers or as it is from the UK Club, just cavaliers in the UK?
 
Unless the intention has changed since the February meeting it is for every cavalier wherever they are. I would think that the care giver, whether owner or fosterer, can fill it in. The important thing is to have information on as many cavaliers as possible.
 
Unless the intention has changed since the February meeting it is for every cavalier wherever they are. I would think that the care giver, whether owner or fosterer, can fill it in. The important thing is to have information on as many cavaliers as possible.

International cavaliers? or only UK cavs?
 
At the February meeting it was all cavaliers, so unless things have changed it is International cavaliers, not just UK cavaliers.
 
Yes it is international and the CKCS Club has since added this (from their website)......

"If you do not reside in the UK please put your country after your name in the "Name" field. Then, if required we can distinguish UK dogs from the others."
 
Please help by filling in a form for each of your cavaliers

This is the chance for every cavalier owner to help establish what health problems are most common in the breed.

There is a form that can be downloaded or the simple on-line form is now up on www.thecavalierclub.co.uk.

Please spread the news to all the cavalier groups you know & encourage all owners you know with a cavalier to contribute to this survey. We need all cavaliers, including pet-owned dogs, to be included.

The survey form is to be filled in for any cavalier living with their owners, carers or fosterers between the 2nd June and 9th June. One form for each cavalier. Non-UK cavaliers can be included.
 
Please remember to do the health survey form this week.

It is important that everyone possible contributes health information on their cavaliers.
 
We filled it out on-line (no need to print out the form) at http://thecavalierclub.co.uk/health/survey_13/intro.html

It was surprisingly brief. I am not objecting to that. I did notice that a few disorders were missing. A major one is dry eye (not the curly coat kind -- keratitis sicca or keratoconjunctivitis sicca). Others are:

Skin conditions
Cerebellar Infarcts -- Strokes
Eosinophilic Stomatitis
Fly-Catchers Syndrome
Muscular Dystrophy
Blood Platelet issues

I realize that there was a space for listing additional disorders, but when the very uncommon curly coat is listed and the very common dry eye (keratitis sicca or keratoconjunctivitis sicca) is not, it seems odd to me.

I found "Multi Retinal Dysplasia" to be ambigous. There are three or so forms of retinal dysplasia (mild, geographic, and retinal detachment), but I am not familiar with "multi retinal dysplasia".
 
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It was surprisingly brief. I am not objecting to that. I did notice that a few disorders were missing. A major one is dry eye (not the curly coat kind -- keratitis sicca or keratoconjunctivitis sicca). Others are:

Skin conditions
Cerebellar Infarcts -- Strokes
Eosinophilic Stomatitis
Fly-Catchers Syndrome
Muscular Dystrophy
Blood Platelet issues

FWIW, these are things I noticed:

"Pancreatic deficiency" is listed, which I guess is supposed to be EPI (exocrine pancreatic insufficiency) -- but pancreatitis is not listed. Pancreatitis (I think) may be more common in Cavaliers than EPI, but I wonder if people will check this item for BOTH diseases (out of confusion) rather than listing pancreatitis under "other," which will distort the results.

Hereditary and juvenile cataracts are the same thing; both terms are listed but no listing for senile cataracts. This may cause some confusion.

And I agree with Rod, KCS is pretty common in the breed and I think should be on the list.

I suppose that eosinophilic stomatitis could be recorded under "auto-immune disease."

Rod, I don't think I would have listed cerebellar infarcts because it is difficult for GP vets to distinguish between those and idiopathic vestibular incidents without an MRI. Very few people do MRI's in those cases because recovery generally takes only a few days. (I've had quite a few teenaged Cavaliers with what we considered to be vestibular incidents, and I never did any diagnostic testing for them. All recovered quickly.) So it would be difficult to say with certainty that a Cavalier had a cerebellar infarct.

Pat
 
When the census was first announced in the Cavalier Club newsletter a couple of months ago, the writer said, diplomatically, that one of the reasons for doing it was because some members 'felt that Cavaliers were unfairly called an unhealthy breed'. The census may not cover every conceivable ailment, but I hope the results will at least dispel that particular myth! It was simple enough to add in the 'Other' section 'Dry eye (but not curly coat)' for Oliver and 'Keratosis (not Dry Eye) and Myoclonus' for Aled. And I hope lots of people will tick the top 2 boxes on the right - not that I hope lots of Cavaliers have CM/SM, but some people really do need to get their heads pulled out of the sand!

Kate, Oliver and Aled
 
We filled it out on-line (no need to print out the form) at http://thecavalierclub.co.uk/health/survey_13/intro.html

It was surprisingly brief. I am not objecting to that. I did notice that a few disorders were missing. A major one is dry eye (not the curly coat kind -- keratitis sicca or keratoconjunctivitis sicca). Others are:

Skin conditions
Cerebellar Infarcts -- Strokes
Eosinophilic Stomatitis
Fly-Catchers Syndrome
Muscular Dystrophy
Blood Platelet issues

I realize that there was a space for listing additional disorders, but when the very uncommon curly coat is listed and the very common dry eye (keratitis sicca or keratoconjunctivitis sicca) is not, it seems odd to me.

I found "Multi Retinal Dysplasia" to be ambigous. There are three or so forms of retinal dysplasia (mild, geographic, and retinal detachment), but I am not familiar with "multi retinal dysplasia".

Yes, Dry Eye should have been on the list as it is so very common in cavaliers; it was an oversight by all us brainstorming at the workshop.

This is meant to be a first basic survey to confirm what health issues are common in Cavaliers. More detailed surveys are said to be planned.

Any health survey can only give some indication of prevalence. Deafness, Dry Eye & MVD are relatively cheap and easy to diagnose. SM will inevitably be under-reported.
 
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