Welcome to the Autumn edition of our club newsletter. We always enjoy receiving stories and pictures from our members so please do get in touch if you have a story to tell.
There isn’t long now until our club’s Christmas Party on Sunday 17th November, 10.30am to 4pm. It is being held at Lyne Village Hall, Chertsey, Surrey, KT16 0AN. We will be holding our AGM during the day and as usual there will be plenty of fun and games and a visit from Santa! Fancy Dress theme is anything Christmas! There is also a special prize for the best home made outfit!
Upcoming Events
One of our members, Louise is organising a West Wittering beach meet to celebrate her Cavaliers birthday. Miss Xena will be 2 years old and the meet up is planned for the 7th November at 11am. Meeting at the car park which you will need to pre-book!
Events Past
Our now infamous annual Copt Oak weekend took place from 26th – 28th July. As usual we had members arriving with their tents and caravans and other booked into hotels or Airbnb’s, all looking forward to another weekend with like-minded people.
Those arriving on Friday night took the opportunity of catching up with fellow members and their cavaliers, then having their evening meal either at the venue or down the local pub that was now completely dog friendly. Saturday began with members both old and new arriving and competing in the fun and games, which as always descended into complete noisy mayhem. The sausage race causes the most excitement especially on the part of the dogs, and quite a few had more than their fair share of sausages. This was followed by Fancy Dress with the theme of Upstairs Downstairs and it certainly invoked some interesting costumes. The overall winner was Margaret Carter and Vikki Browning with Aimi, Frankie and Dave. The afternoon was taken up with the Fun Dog show very kindly Judged by Jay who found it very hard to pick out the winners. Although, he very fairly made sure that most entrants won a rosette. The cavalier who ended up as the judges favourite was Lilly owned by Melanie. Early evening was quiz night, which was very competitive, the winners were the team called Four-Legged Friends (Margaret, Roger, Vikki, Esther, Ken, Jen & Kate) and this was followed by our usual fish and chip supper.
On Sunday we held two workshops – Rally and Scent work. A big thank you to Tracy Alker and Maggie Dawson for organising and running these. Unfortunately, not many members attended on the Sunday, but those that took part really enjoyed themselves and both them and their cavaliers learnt a lot. We are hoping to run further workshops in the future if there are enough members able to attend.The weekend ended with a cream tea and sad goodbyes until the next time. The raffle raised £115 which has been donated to Cavalier Matters.


Next year we will be running the weekend from 18th to 20th July with the main activities taking place on Saturday. So please make sure you put that date in your diaries as soon as you get them. We look forward to seeing you – all members old and new. We are also on the lookout for another venue which would be similar to Copt Oak on the M40 corridor – so if anyone knows of anywhere please let us know.


West Wittering Mini Meet
On a cloudy Saturday, 31 August, a group of us descended upon West Wittering beach for a mini meet. Luckily it was well timed to coincide with low tide so we had plenty of sandy beach for the dogs to enjoy.


People arrived at various times to join the morning beach walk, picnic and afternoon walk around East Head. It was lovely to have both old and new members attending. After afternoon coffee and cake some even stayed on to have another later walk and swim.
There may be another beach mini meet on Hayling Island in October, always a favourite partly because of the great pub/restaurant nearby, so look out for the date and come and join us!


Member Stories
Two of our Committee members, Sandra and Christine have been spending the year visiting different National Trust properties and gardens as part of the trust’s Pooch passport scheme. This month was a trip to Morden Hall Park, as you can see Nala and Archie are enjoying all their adventures below!

Below is a picture of beautiful Lulu who belongs to member Caroline. She competed in her first agility show recently and came home with a 1st & 3rd place rosette! Well done Lulu! We are sure there will be many more that you add to your collection in the future.


Above is 13 year old Lola who recently returned from a fantastic holiday in Scotland with her owner Claire. I think we can all agree it looks like she had a fabulous time!
Health News
Everything you need to know about Canine Chiari Malformation and/or Syringomyelia: Dr. Clare Rusbridge’s Frequently Asked Questions web page is up and running! Please visit for more information about Canine Chiari Malformation and/or Syringomyelia (CM/SM) affecting the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel: www.caninechiari.com/faq
Swedish Research News
A mandatory heart screening program was introduced in Sweden and the risk of dying before age 10 is now almost half of what it was prior to the program; early cases of heart murmurs and heart failure is almost gone from the Swedish population. However the Swedish breed club stated that Mitral Valve Disease and Syringomyelia are near to impossible to extinguish in a screening programme unless new genes are added to the breed. The Finnish and Swedish Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Clubs have started cross-breeding programs to improve the health of the breed.
Pancreatitis
With Christmas being around the corner I think we can all be guilty of wanting to spoil our dogs. With this in mind I wanted to bring attention to Pancreatitis in this newsletter.
Pancreatitis’ means inflammation of the pancreas. This occurs when digestive enzymes are prematurely released in to the pancreas and literally start to digest it. This can obviously be very painful and often causes a focal form of peritonitis and pain. Affected dogs typically go off their food and often vomit and show some signs of stomach pain. They can also have a little blood on their faeces and straining. Occasionally, dogs will have a severe flare up with severe bloody diarrhoea but this is not common. Some dogs have very few clinical signs at all. ‘Acute pancreatitis’ is short term and does not result in permanent scarring of the pancreas, but can be very serious. ‘Chronic pancreatitis’ means that this inflammation has been present for a long time and has produced some permanent scarring in the pancreas. Dogs with chronic pancreatitis typically have milder signs but flare-ups come and go weeks to months apart.
For more information please visit the Cavalier Matters website, don’t forget to visit the Cavalier Matters Gift Shop too for all your Christmas gifts, cards and gift wrap!
Final Note
As a committee we meet 4 times a year and we are always open to suggestions and/or questions for discussion by our members, please send these to secretary@nullcompanioncavalierclub.co.uk.
We are always looking for reasons to celebrate with our members and member stories for the Newsletters so please do get in touch if you have a story to share. From milestone birthdays to training successes, obituary or great achievements we want to hear from you! Email our editor with any pictures on ruby-charliefund@nullhotmail.co.uk