Latest News On Syringomyelia In Cavalier King Charles Spaniels.

[bet hargreaves]

There was a Seminar held here in Britain 7-10-10, a piece of Good News,was that in a well Regulated Study, it was shown by following Breeding Guidelines ,they do work,Syringomyelia in our Cavalier Breed can be being Bred away from Early Onset.

A to A Matings Produce 75 .9% of Offsprings who have no Syringomyelia.

Now at least it has been shown that by MRI Scanning Cavaliers ,and they have A's ,then A to A matings do produce 75.9% of no Off-Springs with SM.

Bet Hargreaves

[shortstep]

There was a Seminar held here in Britain 7-10-10, a piece of Good News,was that in a well Regulated Study, it was shown by following Breeding Guidelines ,they do work,Syringomyelia in our Cavalier Breed can be being Bred away from Early Onset.

A to A Matings Produce 75 .9% of Offsprings who have no Syringomyelia.

Now at least it has been shown that by MRI Scanning Cavaliers ,and they have A's ,then A to A matings do produce 75.9% of no Off-Springs with SM.

Bet Hargreaves

Bet, for those who not up on it,

What is "A" ?

What is the precentage of dogs tested in the general population that are "A". Another words of 100 dogs tested, how many would be A's?

So what they found was if you bred 2 'A' dogs together, that 1 out of 4 pups was affected?

Do they (who is they?) believe that one in 4 is an improved rate?

What is the current rate of affected dogs in litters that are from random parents?

Any further sugestions on reducing it down from 1 in 4 affected rate?

[asal]

frankly if the incidence is 1 in 4 that equates to a B. WHATEVER the gene they are talking.

for a one in four incidence of an expression both parents have to be carrying one pair of the defective elle or gene

in pra for example A is free of the gene and ALLL PUPPIES ARE clear.

one in four means both parents are B carrying one copy of the defect.

soo are they saying ALLL CAVALIERS are carriers?

[bet hargreaves]

frankly if the incidence is 1 in 4 that equates to a B. WHATEVER the gene they are talking.

for a one in four incidence of an expression both parents have to be carrying one pair of the defective elle or gene

in pra for example A is free of the gene and ALLL PUPPIES ARE clear.

one in four means both parents are B carrying one copy of the defect.

soo are they saying ALLL CAVALIERS are carriers?

I believe that there will be more information available shortly once the full Veterinary Paper is Published.At the moment it is so important to be having Cavalier Breeding Stock MRI Scanned .

When the Genes for SM are discovered , then the Carriers will also be found, and hope-fully the Horrible SM Disease will be on the way out and the suffering of our Cavaliers helped

Bet Hargreaves

[Jed]

Obviously I don't breed enough Cavaliers for SM to appear, although after 15 years of breeding, I would have thought it would have appeared.

I'm not surprised about none of my pups having MVD, I selected against it.

The researchers might have found the gene/genes responsible for SM before the breed is banned, but I doubt it. It's not a simple autosomal recessive, or a dominant, and I will be surprised if they ever find it/them. It may be polygenic too, or caused to vaccination, food - anything, and not genetic at all.

I don't think sufficient attention is paid to the results from research on Pottingers Cats, and vets are too ready to blame genetics for everything.

Not saying that it is not genetic.

And really, all the research hasn't given the breeders any assistance to avoid SM at all.

How disappointing.

If I thought I would produce 1:10 pups with syringo, never mind 1:4, I would cease breeding, and I certainly couldn't countenance breeding so that ONE pup from EVERY LITTER would have SM, even after spending a few grand on MRIs and travelling.

Terribly disappointing.

Edited October 21, 2010 by Jed

[asal]

frankly if the incidence is 1 in 4 that equates to a B. WHATEVER the gene they are talking.

for a one in four incidence of an expression both parents have to be carrying one pair of the defective elle or gene

in pra for example A is free of the gene and ALLL PUPPIES ARE clear.

one in four means both parents are B carrying one copy of the defect.

soo are they saying ALLL CAVALIERS are carriers?

I believe that there will be more information available shortly once the full Veterinary Paper is Published.At the moment it is so important to be having Cavalier Breeding Stock MRI Scanned .

When the Genes for SM are discovered , then the Carriers will also be found, and hope-fully the Horrible SM Disease will be on the way out and the suffering of our Cavaliers helped

Bet Hargreaves

frankly i think its a load of bull#*+#

my first bitch had 7 in her first litter and 8 in her second. they are 12 and 11 now n not a sm in the lot thats 15 pups if you cant add.

n they would have shown by now.

counting my own and those belonging to friends probably think ive known nearly 100 cavs over the past decades n never seen it in save one who certantly began to show the symptoms at age 6.

n luckily desexed n never bred from, it came from a kennel thats ho so ethical n never sells any on main register so anyone who has one descended from their progeny would have not had their LR pup desexed as per contact anyway.

as well seen many others same kennel same breeding and no sign of it as they aged n many have made it to 13 n 16 years old. so i find it hard to believe the figures stated at all. should i add, that affected dog came from a litter of 8 and never heard of any siblings developing any problems?

Edited October 21, 2010 by asal

[asal]

had a very intresting conversation with a budgie breeder yesterday.

n im talking a guy whos stock was soo good showwise there would be a que for even his seconds

he is so against showing now because as he said they cant leave the standard alone. always tweaking a word here, an interpretation there, and its the birds that pay.

interesting eh?

was explaining the english bred them so big they were almost twice the size of the aussie bird. so the aussies imported some of the big uns and bred up the size of the birds here. problem was apparently there was a disaster hiding in the genes that increased the size and when it came to light there wasnt an unaffected bird to be found.

so nest fulls of dying was the result.

sounds a bit familar doesnt it

as he said the show scene is flawed .

the vision is more important than the genetics contained, n thats without the "added confusion caused by face judging " LOL so its not just in the dog scene eh?

Edited October 21, 2010 by asal

[asal]

Obviously I don't breed enough Cavaliers for SM to appear, although after 15 years of breeding, I would have thought it would have appeared.

I'm not surprised about none of my pups having MVD, I selected against it.

The researchers might have found the gene/genes responsible for SM before the breed is banned, but I doubt it. It's not a simple autosomal recessive, or a dominant, and I will be surprised if they ever find it/them. It may be polygenic too, or caused to vaccination, food - anything, and not genetic at all.

I don't think sufficient attention is paid to the results from research on Pottingers Cats, and vets are too ready to blame genetics for everything.

Not saying that it is not genetic.

And really, all the research hasn't given the breeders any assistance to avoid SM at all.

How disappointing.

If I thought I would produce 1:10 pups with syringo, never mind 1:4, I would cease breeding, and I certainly couldn't countenance breeding so that ONE pup from EVERY LITTER would have SM, even after spending a few grand on MRIs and travelling.

Terribly disappointing.

how many dogs have you seen exhititing any of the signs in your years with the breed?

has it been as low as i have seen or am i just fortunate.

[Dellcara]

how many dogs have you seen exhititing any of the signs in your years with the breed?

has it been as low as i have seen or am i just fortunate.

I have been in the breed 30+ years and have seen several "symptomatic" dogs and know of some who

had been put to sleep because of it.

It's not a matter of dogs being "symptomatic" , it's the presence of a syrinx, only determinable by an MRI

that defines whether SM is present or not.

There is no denying there is a problem in the breed - we can only do as we have always done and that is

to use the tools available to us if possible.

[Steve]

We have now had breed health surveys running for over a year. In the Cav breed over 400 cav owners have responded. We have a record of IP addresses so we can see how many different people have entered their details so we know its a fair bet that the data hasn't been affected much by breeders who wanted to make their breed look healthier than it was.

Its possible - probable- that some breeders who have responded may have held back and told some fibs but around 60% of those who responded are owners and not breeders.

They are just ordinary every day Aussie dog owners who have been O.K. about telling us about their dogs with MVD and joint and eye issues - so why wouldnt they also tell us about this if their dogs have been diagnosed with it?

Surely if this was such a problem in the breed in dogs bred in this country we would expect to see at least a couple who showed up as being affected.

There was but not in this breed. So either over 400 people who own cavs have told lies[unlikely] ,their dogs have had it but they didn't know [unlikely] or I'm assuming its not as big a deal here in this breed as what it is in England.

When you place so much emphasis on MRI scans for the answer to eliminating it without knowing the mode of inheritance - considering carriers are not affected and show no symptoms but would be the most likely selected as breeding stock you would expect to see a lessening for a minute but in a generation or two it would be back with a vengence.

Scanning isn't going to make a scrap of difference unless every single cav regardless of whether it goes out for breeding or pet is scanned for 10 generations or so and the scan results are placed on an open registry to enable breeders to profile the pedigrees to spot where it is in the family tree. Thats all assuming its only a straight out gene issue and that the condition isn't turned on or off by something else. And that this one condition is all they select against when they consider their estimated breeding values. Personally I think the chances of them coming up with a DNA test to identify it are remote and while you're breeding away from one thing chances are there will be another one or two which will show up anyway. Opening stud books isn't the answer either because other breeds of dogs and cross bred dogs get it too until they work out mode of inheritance. At least if its kept mainly within one gene pool [ breed] the breeders know what to look for and test for to try to breed it out.

Given that the UK pedigree system is different to ours and bunch of other things to do with the culture and the system scanning may be a useful tool but it wont replace breeder knowledge and sharing of info in this country any more than hip scoring will and when you start to focus on the scanning or screening,and only selecting for or against one or two genetic issues traditionally breeders start to think thats all they need to do and all that does is make vets richer and eventually dogs still suffer.

Edited October 22, 2010 by Steve

[Steve]

double post

Edited October 22, 2010 by Steve

[Dellcara]

They are just ordinary every day Aussie dog owners who have been O.K. about telling us about their dogs with MVD and joint and eye issues - so why wouldnt they also tell us about this if their dogs have been diagnosed with it?

Surely if this was such a problem in the breed in dogs bred in this country we would expect to see at least a couple who showed up as being affected.

hi Steve....

This is part of the dilema isn't it ?? .... your "everyday dog owner" is not going to have an MRI done if the dog is not symptomatic - it's a very expensive exercise here in

Australia.

In the recent report to the NSW CKCS Club (Feb 10) , Georgina Childs reported that of the 60 dogs scanned by her through the scannings days organised with the

Club there were 50% that were "clear".

[Steve]

They are just ordinary every day Aussie dog owners who have been O.K. about telling us about their dogs with MVD and joint and eye issues - so why wouldnt they also tell us about this if their dogs have been diagnosed with it?

Surely if this was such a problem in the breed in dogs bred in this country we would expect to see at least a couple who showed up as being affected.

hi Steve....

This is part of the dilema isn't it ?? .... your "everyday dog owner" is not going to have an MRI done if the dog is not symptomatic - it's a very expensive exercise here in

Australia.

In the recent report to the NSW CKCS Club (Feb 10) , Georgina Childs reported that of the 60 dogs scanned by her through the scannings days organised with the

Club there were 50% that were "clear".

Yes it is a dilema because even though you wouldnt expect ordinary dog owners to have scans done as a matter of course you would expect that if its as high as those stats suggest that sooner or later at least some would have to show symptoms and be diagnosed with it.

That for me is even more reason to think that whilst scanning would be one tool to be used that it cant be the only one or over time it wont take us far.

Were the dogs identified and the breeders made aware of the results so the info could be entered on pedigrees?

I still think its going to take scanning, open registries and profiling.

[Dellcara]

Were the dogs identified and the breeders made aware of the results so the info could be entered on pedigrees?

Only where the owners chose to (and some did) ... it is of course confidential like any Club Health Clinic I have ever attended.

[Steve]

Were the dogs identified and the breeders made aware of the results so the info could be entered on pedigrees?

Only where the owners chose to (and some did) ... it is of course confidential like any Club Health Clinic I have ever attended.

Yep and while its kept confidential it doesn't help any dogs.

[Miss B]

I have just added my boys details to the MDBA breed survey, he has Caudal Occipital Malformation Syndrome.

[Liath]

I am an owner of a cav king charles...what is syingomyelia and what are the symptoms? She is 4 1/2 years old and the only problems we have had so far are luxating putellas. She had one operation last thursday to fix the left knee and will have the right one done in 6 months time if needed.

[Dellcara]

I am an owner of a cav king charles...what is syingomyelia and what are the symptoms? She is 4 1/2 years old and the only problems we have had so far are luxating putellas. She had one operation last thursday to fix the left knee and will have the right one done in 6 months time if needed.

Liath, you can read all about it here: http://www.veterinary-neurologist.co.uk/

[asal]

Hey i found this link

https://secure.vlsstore.com/Media/Publicati...V_26_11_886.pdf

good grief n look at the list of breeds its been found in? people too

[bet hargreaves]

Hey i found this link

https://secure.vlsstore.com/Media/Publicati...V_26_11_886.pdf

good grief n look at the list of breeds its been found in? people too

Yes, but the Article by the Researchers also said that

Almost all the Affected Dogs have been Cavalier King Charles Spaniels.

Bet Hargreaves