Firstly, you are wrong in your assessment of the breeding guidelines being heart clear after 2.5 yrs with 5 yrs being ideal -- the Swedish protocol (which incidentally has changed now) states that ideally dogs should be 2.5 yrs of age with a sire and dam of five years or older with a clear heart. Better still, and the most ideal situation, would be a 5 yr old with a sire and dam who were also five years of age and heart clear at that time.
I can only tell you about the dogs I have had experience with. I find that if a dog's heart progresses (as per your example) from no murmur at 5 yrs to a Grade 3 or 4 murmur at 6 or 7 yrs, this is not a good omen!! This is not a dog I would breed from. My own take on whether or not to breed older dogs with murmurs, whatever they may be, is based on the advice of the cardiologist. If they are willing to say breed the dog, then I weight the pros and cons and decide whether I feel comfortable enough to do so. If they say, don't breed the dog, I don't. I am not a cardiologist and I am not qualified to make those decisions. The cardiologist and his associates that I have routinely used have seen so many of my dogs that they can look up the heart background of the ancestors on their computer. Sometimes this information helps them decide upon whether an older dog with a mumur should or should not be bred. In my opinion, it is far more telling to research the heart status of the littermates than the parents and grandparents. I recently had a bitch cleared for breeding due to her older age even though she had a murmur. I decided not to breed her as her litter sister had early onset MVD plus her murmur I felt was progressing. It was beyond my comfort level to breed her. Anne elllen poti wrote: > Hypothetical question, > Really, this is not about any particular situation, just want some thoughts. A >cavalier tests heart clear via cardiologist auscultation at age 5. Obviously we all >agree it is OK to breed this cavalier per the guidelines. What would you do if when >you test the dog when it is 6 or 7and it has a Grade 3 or 4 murmur , per >auscultation? Would you stop breeding that cavalier? Would it make a difference if >it were a male or female? > Why? > I think we are all seeing different forms of the MVD, with the dogs that test >clear for years and boom - they are gone in 6 months - to the dogs that test with >murmurs from an early age that never progresses and they live a fairly normal >lifespan. Would it be OK for a dog with a murmur to breed, but not a bitch because >of the prolonged stress and load on her heart of a pregnancy? What have any of you >ever done in this situation? Obviously, I would get a second opinion and move up to >ultrasound/doppler - but what if that opinion concurred? Would you stop using that >dog even though the guidelines say heart clear after 2.5 years with 5 years being >ideal? Is anyone out there doing research to try to differentiate these different >outcomes with MVD? > Some of you who have been on this list with me from the beginning know our >experiences with cardiology testing and our opinion that it is somewhat subjective >and very frustrating to base breeding decisions on, when the cardiologists in the >same practice don't even agree. I think we all try to use common sense and >experience, but this question of breeding an older dog with a known murmur is curious >to me because of the increased reports of clear cavaliers who are diagnosed with a >murmur and are dead within a year or two. Do we need to factor this into our >decisions? Everybody talks about looking for lines with long-lived dogs. Are those >long-lived dogs living long with a mild murmur? If so, who cares? I wouldn't throw >out testing, but I will never throw out a great dog again because of it. > thoughts?..... > Would love to hear from the experienced, long term cavalier breeders. > Ellen Poti > Avia Cavaliers > Ohio,USA > > ============================"Magic Commands": > to stop receiving mail for awhile, click here and send the email: > mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?bodySET%20CKCS-L%20NOMAIL > to start it up gain click here: > mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?bodySET%20CKCS-L%20MAIL > > E-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] for assistance. > Search the Archives... http://apple.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ckcs-l.html > > All e-mail sent through CKCS-L is Copyright 2002 by its original author. ========================================================= "Magic Commands": to stop receiving mail for awhile, click here and send the email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?body=SET%20CKCS-L%20NOMAIL to start it up gain click here: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?body=SET%20CKCS-L%20MAIL E-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] for assistance. Search the Archives... http://apple.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ckcs-l.html All e-mail sent through CKCS-L is Copyright 2002 by its original author.
