The reality is that most people have healthy dogs.
I am afraid that the reality is that half of us will have cavaliers with heart murmurs by age 5. If you are in the medical field yourself you will understand how wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong this is, especially as breeders have simple tools in their hands to address this problem. It is an absolutely shocking incidence of a serious health problem.
If at a conservative estimate, nearly one in three cavaliers will eventually get SM, and 9 in 10 have a skull too small for their brain, placing constant pressure on the hindbrain and in a considerable number, forcing part of the brain out into the spinal cord, how can this be said to be a normal, healthy dog leading a normal, healthy life? Humans with this condition endure ongoing headaches. Dogs cannot explain they have chronic headaches.
The majority of my rescue dogs coming in -- total random sample, will have heart murmurs if they are around 5-6. Every dog older that 6 has had a murmur. I have many friends and acquaintances who do general rescue or rescue for other breeds who never see this level of heart problems in young dogs. Most of my rescues do not come in as neglected pound or puppy farm dogs. They are people's pets that they need to rehome. I now see about 50-70 dogs annually (depending on the year) -- more than many of the US regional breed rescues -- so I think I see a pretty good random sample.
One of the reasons that I set up this site, with an MVD/SM forum, was because there were so few places people with this breed and these problems could go to share information and get support. On many sites, mention SM and you are practically banned -- having worked for two national AIDS foundations in the US then in Ireland in the 1990s (San Francisco AIDS Foundation, then Aidswise in Dublin), it reminded me a lot of how nobody wanted to know about the problem. People had few places to go if they found they had it, where conversation about the condition was OK.
If anyone has problems with this site's support for dogs with these conditions and owners whose dogs have this condition, believe me, you will find that the majority of the sites and email lists are quite happy to focus almost entirely on discussions about the cuteness of their dogs, buying leash accessories, and the latest TV or film appearance of a cavalier. Those topics are welcome here too but I will not pretend that there are not serious issues with this breed and will always work to get that health info out to people. People also need to understand these problems exist before they decide on this breed, both to identify problems if they arise and keep suffering to a minimum, and because at least with MVD, almost every cavalier owner is going to deal with this, most of the *sooner* rather than *later* -- those are the statistics. I have never found that knowing about the health issues has put a single person off taking one of my rescue dogs. In addition, contrary to all the dire predictions voiced by some clubs in the UK, in Ireland, which also gets the BBC, we have not had a single cavalier come into any of the rescue or pounds that I know of due to the BBC programme (and I work with all the major rescues and several of the large and smaller pounds and SPCAs. The people involved in the programme were told by several breeders that due to the programme, there would be floods of rescue dogs dumped by owners. Hasn't happened going by the UK rescue listings, or for us in Ireland). Since the programme I have had two cavaliers come in -- one due to its owner going into care, and a second due to the arrival of a baby. In other words, the normal rate at which I get cavaliers, and the common reasons. People generally don't abandon their cavaliers due to the possibility of a future health issue and only very rarely when they have them. Likewise most people who own them will likely get them again I think though if you have dealt with a hard health problem -- especially something as distressing as SM or say curly coat or EFS -- many may feel differently.