Four months after losing Bonnie in 2003, I started to look for another Cavalier puppy.

I contacted many breeders all over the country and told them about my experience with Syringomyelia. I wanted to be as sure as I possibly could that my next Cavalier would be healthy. and at that stage I hadn't understood how widespread Syringomyelia was in the breed.

In the end I took a chance with Rosie, a beautiful ruby girl who became available at the age of ten months.

It was not long before I began to worry. Why was she scratching her ears and rubbing her face back and forth along the carpet? I heaved a sigh of relief when my vet found an ear infection which was easily treated. But the face rubbing continued and my anxiety kicked in again. I was aware that I had an irrational fear of Syringomyelia but I had to know if Rosie, too, had inherited this disease.

My vet agreed to an MRI scan and this was done when Rosie was fourteen months old. The results showed that Rosie did have the chiari-like malformation at the back of her skull. Her hindbrain (cerebellum) was compressed and her brainstem slightly kinked. There was a small herniation of her brain into the spinal area, but no syringomyelia. This was both good and bad ws: no syrinx, but there was the skull malformation which could cause it to develop in the future and this is indeed what happened.