shortstep

Can you show us the research for this information? I have never heard anything even like that stated about any population of Cavs and this disease. I remember one study done on OZ cavs, wasn't the affected rate 60% of something close to that? I'll have a look for tht study. Edited to add; Here it is http://www.cavalierhealth.org/syringomyelia.htm MRI SCANS of AUSTRALIAN CKCS Breeding Stock shows 50% with SM. Dr G. CHILDS ,Board Certified Veterinary Neurologist at the Small Animal Specialist Hospital ,in North Ryde , NSW ,Australia,spoke at the CKCS CLUB of NSW about Syringomyelia this Month ,and Reported that of 60 Cavaliers which have been MRI Scanned under the Breeding Protocol ,50% have been found to have Syrinxes on their MRI's None of these Scanned Dogs had Any Symptoms of SM ,and All were Potential Breeding Stock.Their Syrinxes ranged from from 2mm to over 5mm in Size. I think this is absolutly heart breaking news for this breed I hope the breeders all start screening for this and follow the breeding recomendations.

Can you show us the research for this information? I have never heard anything even like that stated about any population of Cavs and this disease. I remember one study done on OZ cavs, wasn't the affected rate 60% of something close to that? I'll have a look for tht study. I think this is absolutly heart breaking news for this breed I hope the breeders all start screening for this and follow the breeding recomendations.

I have no access to the full report. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21672954 Prevalence of asymptomatic syringomyelia in Cavalier King Charles spaniels. Parker JE, Knowler SP, Rusbridge C, Noorman E, Jeffery ND. SourceDepartment of Veterinary Medicine, Queen's Veterinary School Hospital, University of Cambridge, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0ES. Abstract The prevalence of syringomyelia was investigated in a sample population of 555 Cavalier King Charles spaniels. All dogs, which were declared by their owners to be showing no clinical signs of syringomyelia, underwent MRI to determine the presence or absence of the condition. Data were analysed by logistic regression to determine the effects of sex and age on the prevalence of syringomyelia. Only increased age was found to have a significant effect. The prevalence of syringomyelia was 25 per cent in dogs aged 12 months, increasing to a peak of 70 per cent in dogs aged 72 months or more. PMID: 21672954 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

As so many have said on here, any that disagree with these ideas can only be guilty and have something to hide (I bet they are witches and do not believe in a world carbon economy too). I guess we will know if this plan works if we see a sudden drop off of breeders next year. If the numbers do not drop off then I am sure ANKC Vic will come up with more ideas to drive off their breeders who must have something to hide. Perhaps they could try requiring breeders to come in to the building each year to pay for membership? Then hang garlic and oleander around the door, which will repel and drive off all evil. What a terrible state of affairs in the ANKC Vic, good luck with it and do let us know when we can again, if ever, trust the ANKC breeders in Vic. Yep things are looking up! LOL Same old same old - If you're doing the right thing you dont have anything to worry about. Rather than debate the subject and try to educate us because we are so dull just attack us and accuse us of being dodgey and having something to hide. Time will tell. Seems to work in China. Resistance is futile! LOL

As so many have said on here, any that disagree with these ideas can only be guilty and have something to hide (I bet they are witches and do not believe in a world carbon economy too). I guess we will know if this plan works if we see a sudden drop off of breeders next year. If the numbers do not drop off then I am sure ANKC Vic will come up with more ideas to drive off their breeders who must have something to hide. Perhaps they could try requiring breeders to come in to the building each year to pay for membership? Then hang garlic and oleander around the door, which will repel and drive off all evil. What a terrible state of affairs in the ANKC Vic, good luck with it and do let us know when we can again, if ever, trust the ANKC breeders in Vic. Yep things are looking up! LOL

Oh sure but from what I am reading about with these diets is that they address, certain common issues in that breed. For example goldens they are addressing skin problems, Dachshunds attempting to prevent stress on the spine with muscle building, or for the brachy breeds, they mention boxers to help them get the food into their mouth, pugs to help them chew food which also will help their teeth, bulldogs also to help them pick up food and chew food. That sort of thing, call what you like. I think the idea is that the issues are wide spread enough in the breed that they are to market the food for the breed to help with what ever issues they are addressing. And is to help that breed live a more normal life (for example a food that helps them to pick up food vs. food that caused them to have trouble picking up their food). Again call it what you will. I think it is a great idea and I bet they will do well with idea.

So they do! I found this on the web site, a video for each breed discribeing the health problems in that breed that their food will help with. http://www.royalcanin.us/library/videos.aspx Each of these breeds has their own video, with health problem discussed and how the food will help the dog live a more normal life. Cocker Spaniel The Shih Tzu The Pug Golden Retriever The Poodle The Boxer The Dachshund The Labrador Retriever Texturometer Video Yorkshire Terrier Video English Bulldog German Shepherd Video Chihuahua

Wow this is fantastic. They are now making food just for pedigreed dog breeds that will help address some of the diseases found in those breeds. http://products.royalcanin.us/products/dog-food/bulldog-24.aspx For example this one is for English Bull dogs. It addresses these common problems in the breed. Flatulence LESS FLATULENCE English Bulldogs are prone to flatulence, due to their "highly active" digestive systems. BULLDOG 24™ is formulated with egg and soy, both very digestible protein sources.Highly digestible proteins, starches, insoluble minerals and balanced fibers help reduce flatulence and digestive upsets. Sensitive Skin WRINKLED SKIN CARE The skin on the skull and forehead of the English Bulldog falls in dense folds. Routine care, in conjunction with Omega 3 fatty acids found in BULLDOG 24™, promotes healthy skin.For the Bulldog’s dermatitis-prone skin, we include antioxidants, amino acids and essential fatty acids to strengthen the skin’s protective barrier. Joint Health JOINT HEALTH The heavy, compact body of the English Bulldog can put extra stress on joints. BULLDOG 24™ contains supplemental glucosamine and chondroitin.Glucosamine and chondroitin help to protect the joints and Omega 3 fatty acids help to limit inflammation. Unique Jaw KIBBLE The BULLDOG 24™ kibble is adapted to your Bulldog's unique (brachycephalic) jaw. The kibble shape is easier to grasp and chew.Bulldog 24™’s wave shape kibble, engineered specifically for this breed’s unique jaw, makes it easier to grasp and encourages chewing. Sodium tripolyphosphate is added to help reduce the accumulation of plaque and tartar by removing extra calcium in the mouth.

OT = off topic. Must be the cold weather affecting some peoples hearts. Sorry I tought it was a simply delightful video. Such a nice young man taking such gentle care of a little bird in need. Sorry that was lost on all. I will remove it so no one else is troubled or offended by the video. .

I deleted, the tender video of a young man taking care of a baby hummingbird.

It is my understanding that PENN is only a prediction of what might happen and it is an odds system, another words they give you a number that gives the odds of what the hips will be. It is not a DX of normal hips nor of HD. This means that you still have to do AVA hips when the dog is older to see the actual condition of the hips on the adult dog. Personally I would never accept PENN scores only for clearing a dog of Hip dysplasia (or for having HD for that matter), only AVA or OFA. BTW they are far more accurate on some breeds than on others ( on some breeds they have a very poor accuracy rate, in fact they are running around 50/50 or more wrong than right), though the stats that show the accuracy rate on each breed for PENN seem not be on the web anymore.

This is one of the areas that was alarming me. One web site says sign the petition to support all a ban on all live animal exports. Another says send an email to your rep that you support banning all live animals for slaughter, yet another says ban all livestock. Reports on the news run the same, lots of different words being used. One report I just read says 3 different bills are going to or have been presented, anyone have any idea where we can read these 3 bills? Anyway I am sure everyone is right and they are not going to do it, so thanks for the reassurance, but I still would lilek to read the fine print prior to it being made law. BTW has anyone heard any further information about the quarrantine stations, all of which had not renewed their leases, and they gave no plan for what was going to happen. If I remember right the leases begin to expired soon with them all finishing over the next couple of years?

Oh yeah...just jump on a boat or plane with the child asylum seekers who are going to be deported by Gillard to a country who wont give assurances re Human Rights. Easy Peasy. LOL I was thinking more Canada on a plane. LOL

OK we get it, you are mad at me because I see the future of dogs depending on a lot more than the next episode of PDE. Your right, I think that what will determine the future of kennel club dogs will depend mostly on how the kennel breeders repsond to the concerns being voiced around the world by many people. Now if you would like to talk about the way forward for kennel club dogs that is great and a very worthy topic, but it has nothing to do with this tread about banning exports. So please start another thread for it eh.

I do hope you are right. I too am scare of the public response and a government that seems to be reacting very quickly with out a lot of warning. If they do put through a ban on exporting dogs I hope they let people have a chance to get out the coutnry with their dogs. Sort of an Australian dog owners refugee plan to another country with open borders LOL.

Ok well that is fine if you are not worried about export ban because of the future you see for kennel club dogs. However, that has nothing to do with banning exports. So I will worry about it, because of all the other dog owners of mixed breeds, cross breeds and purebred dogs not in the kennel club and those kennel club dog owners who are interested in dealing with this issue about banning dog for export. I hope most dog owners can try to stay focused on the issue and work together as one strong voice, to prevent any bans on exporting dogs.

I do not want to talk about livestock, I want to talk about dogs only. I think it is vital that all dog owners speak up now and make sure that dogs are not included in any ban on exporting. Every time I have spoken to the people who are politically pushing for banning live exports they do include dogs. They claim that large numbers of dogs are exported from Australian for meat. I find this ridiculous as the cost of exporting a single dog runs in the thousands of dollars, there is no way they would be exporting dogs at the price to eat them. Please think how you would feel if for some reason you had to move overseas and had to leave your dogs behind because of this law. Banning the right of a person to take their dogs with them overseas is simply not fair nor is it needed. It is cruel to both the owner and the dogs to force an unnecessary separation. I have moved several times across international borders and always have taken my dogs with me, I cannot imagine not being able to do that. It would be like leaving my children behind. I have spent time in Quarrantine, all the people I have talked to there are bringing in pets, dogs and cats they want to share their lives with. Theses were not dog meat producers or any other nasty thing, just people like you and me who shave their lives with dogs. If there is any hope of keeping dogs healthy, we need to constantly import new lines of dogs (which means new genetics), this also applies to all other countries. If NZ could not import dogs from Australia (or anywhere else) there would be a very negative effect on the NZ dog populations. The same applies to us. We must consider if they make exporting dogs a cruel act then preventing imports will not be far behind. If Australia could not import dogs it would be the end of any chance to save purebred dogs in this country and would even effect cross breeds in the not to distant future. Anytime you have a closed popilation and no influx of new genetics, then inbreeding will increase. The longer this goes on the more the dogs will become inbreed. If you believe at all in the concept that inbreeding is bad for dogs, then it is vital to have the ability to import new genetics into Australia. BTW every dog that is in Australian today, pure and mixed breed will have multiple 'roots' and multiple events of imported dogs in it's history (pedigree). This is a fact, your dog is the direct result of importing and exporting dogs. Just to be clear, when dogs are exported or imported into Australia it is a very tightly government controlled event. All dogs must travel under the direction of a professional shipper, who are experts on all of the laws, most of which have to do with ethical treatment, safety and health. Everything is regulated, vet checks, health checks, the size of the crates (they have more room than I do when I fly LOL) and the length of time they can travel, lay over boarding if needed is also tightly controlled, the list is long and through. All dog only travel by air on the same passenger planes that we fly on. They are never shipped buy boat, or in large containers or in large numbers. The airlines have rules that prevent them from taking more than a couple of dogs on any plane. It is no different from putting a dog in crate on the ferry to Tassie, except the time they are in the crate on the ferry is usually longer and there is no oversight as to the size of crate the dog can be put in (so could end up in a too small crate) and they will be stacked on the ferry but never on the plane. I would say without question, that plane travel is far nicer for the dogs than taking the ferry to Tassie, which is done everyday without a second thought. Also remember that people fly all over OZ with their dogs with far fewer regulations and rules to follow. So please be very aware that there is great risk that dogs will be slipped in on any motion to ban live animal export and we as dog owners need to follow this very closely and be ready to speak out loudly if they are included in the ban.

Jo at the time I said the boxer bit was really totally off base and was nothing more than emotive drama and I still say that. But the over all message is for the most part true, that dogs are being bred for show ring at the cost of health and structural moderation. Now you may not believe that and that is fine. Look if it is not her it is just going to be someone else. Like a Bateson panel of expert vets and genetics and welfare groups, and goodness knows who. Look at the unis working in this area. And to be fair to her, she is only a copy cat, this stuff has been going on for 20 years or more before I ever heard her name. I really don't give her any credit actually, I think she is pretty plain and just taking a subject already in the prime time and exploiting it to make a name for herself. I remember bringing up that list of breed extremes and traits they wanted banned what 20?? years ago, and asking breeders to take notice and respond. I got accused of being a conspiracy theorist LOL. I still get accused of that often. At this point can only deal with what I see happening and PDE is not the problem it is only a symptom of the problem. Least that is how I see it now. I really think we should not waist time talking about PDE and instead talk about what we can do to restore trust in dog breeders and dogs. Edited Just want to add, let us not forget that many European countries have been addressing these issues for years. They already have plans in effect that address the problems and things seem to be going along without a lot of drama. We knew this and yet we ignored it. We could have been doing the same. Now I am going to follow man's best friend's lead, and try to relax.

Well I have had it, trying to stand beside and support people that are not even giving a second look at what they are doing. I think that they are so close to the subject that they can no longer see what is right in front of them, at least they cannot see it the way others do or are far too quick to just dismiss everyone else as not knowing what they are talking about. In some ways it is really sad as many of these folks have invested a life time in the breed and who better to guide it though some needed change. But the denial is too great. I am so over PDE, what is the point of trying to argue with the topic. I think most of things she will present will be based in fact or at least some fact and it will in many cases be impossible to defend. But time will tell. Will she pick out a breed she thinks if doing great, have no idea if she even feels there is any breed free from problems, never mind free from potential problems. But I also don't think it is her problem or obligation to point out the good. Her job as she tells it, is to show what is wrong and she seems to have no shortage of wrongs to bring in to the lounge rooms of the world. Is that really her fault? What I do see happening now is a real divide from those who think their dogs or breed is doing Ok from those with the targeted breeds. However I still say, that the gun will change direction and one day it will likely be pointed at your breed too. Said it before will say it again, there is a real problem with the "They are talking about everyone else but not me" line of thinking. Though this may not matter soon, as the damage to all dogs and all breeding may be so great that we may face even more severe demands such as banning all dogs. To tell the truth this is what scares me most. I now feel I am fighting to save the life of dogs and breeds that get in the way of that, well I am not going to defend them anymore. This has never been my first choice but I feel it is the reality of the situation now. BTW the Australian families who produce these cattle were not the folks in this other country abusing them. I find this fact seems to be lost on many.

So is this dog in all the pedigrees of todays labs?

Well some people are well invested, often a life time has been put into breeds of dogs that are now under attack, and they will try to prove their point. It is not me that has to be convinced is it. Those who need to be convinced are well educated on the subject and have already made up their minds. That part is well past really, now we have moved on to what is going to happen next and will any of the breeders react in a way that might stop even more attacks. Moderation and lack of extremes is what counts and no one who will be making these judegments cares what the standards say, even if it says the top line should drop away until the dogs croup is level with it's elbow. They will just say rewirte it to get rid of the extreme. It is has already happened. They have said change it and they were changed and now they are saying well we don't see a change so it might take more to get this change to happen. Like the recent very real calls to ban a few breeds or the popular notion of having government control over breeding choices. I just hope all breeders that do not breed for extremes, start to stand up and protect their own breeds or their own dogs within some breeds that have been taken to extremes. As someone implied recently on DOL, it really now has to become every man and dog for himself. Least we all get taken down while Nero just fiddles away.

I think the topic and the whole idea of someone who is not a show breeder presenting what they like to see in a breed is prefectly acceptable and in fact could help save some breeds!! I just hope that some breeders are able to take on board the idea that the people who live with their 'pet home placed product' also have to like it and want it. Most dogs bred in the kennel clubs are sold to pet homes, yet the public, pet homes have no input into what they would like to find in a dog breed other than 'shopping with their feet', think designer dogs as an exmaple of shopping with their feet. Yet, almost any person looking at how some dogs in some breeds are built and move can see big problems. They should not feel inhibted or afraid to say what they would like to see, espcially when what they are trying to avoid are things which they feel may well limit the dogs ability to live a normal happy life. A GSD with a roached back and a rear end movement that looks like that of a dog with a spinal injury, rear legs wobbling around at the hips, stifles and hocks (and weak front pasterns too) and dragging their knuckles on the ground is not a pretty to most people. It is very much Ok to say that you like a more moderate and normal looking dog instead. Me too! http://youtu.be/-_z3fgk9bQw

Thanks for bringing this post back up, at the time it was up last I had said the AWBC Australian Working Border Collie registry web site would be up soon. Well here it is, warts and all. Be patient as we put up a page and then take it down to improve it (I think 2 are down today, well one day it will really be done...LOL AWBC Australian Working Border Collie

This is a question being ask around the world right now and not just about GSD, but about many of Kennel club breeds. Why do breeders change the shapes and why do they often end up with such extreme traits that are not in the best interest of the dogs. We can ask the same about the pug, why over the time it has been in the kennel club have the breeders reduced an already shorter nose to the point that it is now so short that it has become an animal welfare issue and why have they reduced the legs to be so short? At this point however, why is no longer the issue and what is being asked is what can be done to change the breeds back to something more comfortable for the breed to live with. Here some pics from the 1800 of pugs. http://www.puginformation.org/pug-history-origins.html

Well not to worry as I hear soon, to own pet will require council approval. To get approval you first have to take the Government mandated Pet Owners Class, Test and Investigation, which is 3 sessions a week for 12 weeks, conducted by the Greens party, the RSPCA and the Australian Association of Psychiatrist at a cost of $700.00. No refunds either. I hear only 10% of the people will be deemed psychologically fit, financially capable, child free and carbon neutral enough to own a pet. I hope you make the cut.