One of the big issues for the breed, Fidelma, is that the heart and syringomyelia problems are turning out to be very great indeed. Unfortunately no breed club except Sweden's actually requires cardiac certs for breeding dogs and to my knowledge, almost no breeders in Ireland follow the heart protocol set out seven years ago, yet this is so central to the breed's health and log life -- and future. The UK breed club does recommend following it, but the Irish club unfortunately doesn't or sure doesn't encourage it, and I think many breeders here aren't even aware of the protocols. In general no dog should be bred unless it is aged 5 (yes, five!) and certified heart clear (free of a murmur) or not until 2 and a half, IF both parents are known to be heart clear themselves at age 5. Because such protocols aren;t followed, the age at which these dogs acquire heart murmurs is very young -- 50% have a murmur at age 5, yet murmurs are generally an old dog's problem -- this is the equivalent of 50% of 20 year old humans getting alzheimers! A small breed *should* have a lif expectancy of 15 or so, but cavaliers have a life expectacny of only 7-10 years
-- this is the same as giant breeds like the Great Dane who have very shortened life spans!
On top of that, internationally-recognsied neurologists now believe this breed is at serious risk because of syringomyelia -- which almost no breeders in Ireland are taking seriously right now. However studies in the UK, US amd Canada are showing that * about 70% of ALL cavaliers seem to have some degree of SM * -- meaning their skull is too small and their brain is being forced down into their spinal column. There is now a breeding protocol for that, too, but I am guessing the Irish breed club has not announced this development. It is very disappointing as right now there are very serious fears that this breed only may have a couple of decades left before it is so seriously affected by SM and MVD that it will effectively cease to exist. Already leading geneticists are saying in North America that ONLY SM-clear dogs should be bred to clear as the inheritence isn;t understood and the situation is probably getting worse every day -- but that would mean only about 10% of dogs could be bred, too small to keep a valid gene pool. Thus the breed has been accepted for a full genome scan in N. America (a very rare honour), because it is considered to be under threat of extinction if this isn;t better understood so breeders can breed away from it. Sadly while the breed clubs are the key to saving the breed they don't yet seem to want to talk about this or take leadership in guiding members on this, as time keeps ticking by. Ask Evelyn perhaps if the breed club is aware of how serious the problem is now and if it will be taking any action -- I certainly hope so. I have one dog with SM and one without -- so it is a very personal issue for me.
The point of this is to say, with cavaliers, just breeding a champion dog to another dog means little now. Really, it is a breed that needs serious conservation effort which means health status and history is more important than whether the dog produces a head and colouring that will win in the show ring. Having talked to internationally based researchers on this and in the course of keeping up with ongoing research in the area, I cannot stress enough how very very serious the plight of the breed is.
Breeders are increasingly going to be faced with puppy buyers who return to them for help or bring a dog back and want their money returned because of SM-affected puppies -- and this is a costly, extremely painful condition for many affected dogs. So breeders will be feeling this more directly and need to figure out how they will be dealing with this. That's also something the breed clubs should really be giving guidance on especially as you could imagine such things ending up in court when a puppy buyer finds they will need to spend €5000 on surgery for an affected puppy, after a €1000 diagnostic MRI (the going price in Ireland). So you can see why many feel breeding is a quite serious issue now for the breed.
I think not neutering in this country brings great risks -- that people will breed the dogs and produce more health-compromised puppies as they won;t be researching the health of the pedigrees, and also, because so many of these dogs get sold on again to puppy famrs and live out their lives in small cages, covered in urine and feces (see my puppy farm section for some Irish examples). Intact cavaliers are stolen for such farms -- I have no doubt that is where the ones stolen in Blanchardstown were going. They are real hellholes. And people present themselves as nice family people but puppy farmers and brokers for dogs are expert at doing this, often getting a family member to go pretend they are taking the dog. I often call people offering cavs for free in the B&S to warn them to be sure to neuter as some pretty scary people call those free ads looking for puppy farm breeding stock. Ireland has one of the biggest puppy farm industries in the world.