Unfortunately, cavalier king charles spaniels can suffer from various health problems. The most common health problems for cavaliers are mitral valve disease, eye disorders, patellar luxation, and Chiari malformation. In this post, I’m not focusing on listing all the diseases but more on talking about why cavaliers have so many health problems and how we can resolve them.
It’s important to talk about this topic even though it’s unpleasant and uncomfortable. We can’t shut our eyes from reality and ignore the issues. New owners need to know the risks of owning a cavalier and breeders need to talk openly about health problems.
Why Cavalier King Charles Spaniels Have So Many Health Problems?
First, we have to know a little bit about the breed’s history. The modern breed of cavalier King Charles spaniel was almost destroyed to extinction during the Second World War in the 1940s. There is documentation that after the war six cavaliers were left to start the new population.
This means an extremely narrow gene pool and inbreeding. A lot of inbreeding.
Sadly that was a common dog breeding program at the time. If a dog possessed the desired quality, a sire would mate with its daughter. Mother-son, brother-sister, or cousin-cousin pairings were not anything abnormal.
Ironically, this royal breed of cavaliers has suffered the same results as the royal families of Europe. We know from royal families who wanted to keep their bloodlines pure that inbreeding only leads to tragedy.
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The Problems And Risks of Inbreeding Dogs
As mentioned above inbreeding has been used to establish a desirable trait that a certain dog or a bloodline holds. It once was a popular breeding technique but today we know the problems and risks that come with it.
Pashudhan Praharee lists six consequences of dog inbreeding:
- Inbreeding depression
- Smaller gene pool
- Expression of deleterious recessive alleles
- Passing and fixation of defects
- Shorter lifespan
- Long-term structural and morphological issues
These consequences can be seen as a long list of hereditary diseases, birth defects and infertility, behavioral problems, and more.
When comes to cavaliers, we can recognize a couple of points from that list. A small gene pool and expression of deleterious recessive alleles have caused mitral valve disease, and long- term structural issue for cavaliers is the Chiari malformation.
I recently wrote a post answering the question, is the cavalier King Charles spaniel a brachycephalic breed? I dove more into details there so please if you are interested, go read it.
How to Resolve Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Health Problems?
The biggest reason why cavalier health problems are hard and slow process to resolve is the fact that most of the hereditary diseases have polygenic inheritance. Polygenic inheritance makes cavalier breeding challenging.
Polygenic inheritance refers to the kind of inheritance in which the trait is produced from the cumulative effects of many genes in contrast to monogenic inheritance in which the trait results from the expression of one gene
Biology online
This means, that if you match two cavaliers with healthy eyes, some of the puppies might still end up having an eye disorder. Logically, when the parents are healthy, you expect them to have healthy puppies. That would be the case in monogenic inheritance.
The breeder needs to study the bloodlines of their dogs, know what hereditary diseases occur in the bloodlines, and consider those findings in the decision-making.
But how could the breeder possibly know what diseases occur in their dogs’ bloodlines? The answer is health testing. By encouraging dog owners to do health testing the breeder gets valuable knowledge about the litters they produced.
Health Screenings And DNA Testing
Recommended cavalier king charles spaniel health tests are:
- Eye disorders
- Heart diseases (most common mitral valve disease)
- Hip Dysplasia
- Patellar luxation
- MRI scan for Chiari malformation and syringomyelia
- DNA tests for
- Episodic Falling Syndrome (EFS)
- Curly Coat & Dry Eye Syndrome (CC&DE)
Health screenings and DNA testing for dogs are medical tests and procedures done by veterinarians. The screenings are often done on asymptomatic dogs to find out if they in fact suffer from any hereditary diseases.
For Example, a heart murmur is often asymptomatic but can be heard by a trained professional. Cavalier can have symptomless syringomyelia, which can be only found through an MRI scan.
And this is the pit many uninformed dog owners often fall into: “My cavalier has always been healthy because the dog has never had any symptoms!”
Responsible owner educates themselves and responsible breeder takes all the necessary measures to health test their dogs. In my opinion, health testing shouldn’t be something only a breeder does.
Most cavaliers are family pets with no breeding intentions, but the family dogs are just as genetically valuable. The more dogs are tested, the more data there is available. This data can be used in research.
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Well-Controlled Crossbreeding Program
This needs an open mind and a modern approach. Now that it has been established that the cavalier spaniels have an extremely narrow gene pool, one really good option is to consider well-controlled crossbreeding.
I know I’m already pissing some people off but just think about this, how was it completely normal to do crossbreeding in the early 1900s but in today’s world some people consider it to be straight up sacrilege.
When you mix two or more separate gene pools, the recessive genes that carry the health problems are buried. As a result, you get a healthier animal
Peninsula humane society
I will be writing an in-depth article in the future about crossbreeding so I’m not going too much into that now.
Conclusion
The cavalier health problems are caused by a narrow gene pool. The Second World War almost wiped the whole breed to extinction and left the breeders with six documented individuals. With those cavaliers, the breed was resurrected but it came with the cost of health.
Nowadays we know where the problems stem from and we can combat hereditary diseases with health screenings and DNA tests. But the real fact is that no matter how much we test and screen our dogs, the gene pool is not getting any larger without drastic measures.
It is important to note that not all Cavaliers will develop these health issues, but it is important to be aware of the potential risks and to take proactive steps to care for their health. This includes regular vet check-ups, proper diet and exercise, and working with reputable breeders who health test their breeding dogs.