I have neither the time or money to show but I wanted to breed and raise puppies.
:yikes :yikes :yikes
That says it all right there. Classic BYB, who just wants to sell puppies for income. People like this are why 50% of cavaliers have a heart murmur by age 5!!
The breeder of the sire, who has a vested interest in giving a thumbs up to a breeder HE agreed to let use his stud, who himself isn't health testing, is heartily recommending a woman who imported a dog only so that she could get a breeding bitch to sell puppies and she doesn't care enough about the breed to be club-involved in showing or otherwise publicly exhibiting her dogs? Fabulous. And she isn't following the most basic health protocol? I am sorry, but this just gets worse and worse. It makes me furious that this kind of exploitation of puppy buyers and worse, the breed, goes on.
I am closing this thread and going back now and removing references to sire and dam as this discussion is now moving into an area that isn't acceptable as a public discussion; I don't want specific breeders and lines identified as not being tested. I also think everything that can possibly said as to why you should avoid this woman, has been said. Nothing excuses this approach to breeding. To my mind this is the worst possible type of breeding as she absolutely must know how hypocritical and disingenuous her approach is to breeding and is doing it anyway while dressing it up as responsible breeding by doing tests that look good but are, in the overall context of her 'programme', utterly pointless. This is cluelessness at its worst. I far prefer the really stupid people who obviously just breed any two old dogs for cash and are not even trying to be deceptive. How anyone who has spent 5 minutes looking into the breed can believe they are above the MVD protocol, I do not know. But this kind of breeding is morally and ethically empty and both breeders should know that.
I will simply stress again that you need BOTH dam and sire to have been properly tested for hearts and they also need to be used within the MVD protocol itself -- simply testing the hearts isn't good enough! The dam MUST have cardiac clearances on both HER parents or she is still TOO YOUNG TO BE BRED TO BE CONSIDERED SAFE according to decade old MVD protocol. I would not go near a breeder who isn't following the MVD protocol. She very clearly is not if she is using an untested stud, and doubly so if her female remains underaged and she doesn't have those grandparents certs. A responsible breeder -- indeed anyone who takes five minutes to read the MVD protocol, which is very brief -- will know exactly what they should be doing and this breeder MUST know she is breeding outside the single most important health protocol in the breed!
And as I said, the things she says in her ads alone raise some red flags. Advertising pet quality dogs as having 'perfect markings' is classic BYB stuff. No reputable breeder says things like that, knowing it is a ridiculous statement simply meant to sell dogs to people who want to think they have a show quality puppy.
What you do is of course your choice, but people have pointed out some serious issues with this woman over and over -- what you decide is important to you is of course up to you but by buying from a person like this you line the pockets of the breed exploiters and contribute to the very serious health issues facing this breed right now from exactly this type of shallow breeding approach. This isn't a breeder that is breeding within long established health guidelines and that doesn't change even if she has a dozen OFA certs.
She is simply getting the basic tests done seemingly as a selling point as she is not actually using them for a proper, health-focused breeding programme. :sl*p: The MVD protocol is
a thousand times more crucial than patellas, hips and eyes and she isn't following it on either side of this mating.
I don't think a breeder has to show, but to my mind, except in very exceptional circumstances of someone well connected enough to get superb sires or dams from other very established health focused breeders, they do need to be club-active in some way or they have absolutely NO WAY to set their dogs against others being bred and are unlikely in my mind to get similarly health cleared dogs for their breeding program. Not many would allow their dogs to be used by people totally outside any kind of structured dog activity. Health to me is a primary consideration but I also want a cavalier that looks like a cavalier, and has the right temperament, and has good lines in both directions.
And finally as for breeders and 'good reputations' -- well, there are breeders who have good reputations and prominent names, and there are breeders who have good heath focused breeding programs. Many of the prominent names have very large scale breeding operations where you'd wonder how kennelled dogs would ever have, say the often subtle symptoms of SM noticed. I only noticed my own SM-dog's initial symptoms because he slept in my room and his scratching, at night only, woke me up. Many of the prominent names and those with good reputations in the show world are not people whose judgement or breeding programs I would go near with a 10 foot pole. Some are actually considered to be highly questionable by many others in the breed as well. That is why finding a breeder takes time and requires talking to a lot of people and understanding not just what tests are required but why they are reuired and how they fit into actual health protocols -- stand alone tests mean very little in the case of either hearts or syringomyelia (see
www.smcavalier.com for more info).
Most of the breeders I most admire have smaller operations, lesser known names, but are focused on proper testing for MVD and increasingly SM as well as other issues. To me theres no point in having a dog that looks nice in the show ring or goes to a nice family, then dies a slow painful death from MVD or SM. Breeders should be the guardians -- not the exploiters -- of their chosen breed. :x
