I agree totally with Marianne: work with reputable club show breeder who health tests and temperament tests her puppies and can thus help select a puppy that matches what you want, rather than a gender
. Far more important than boy or girl is whether you want an active go-getter dog that will need lots of stimulation and exercise (eg like my Jaspar, who I call my Attention Deficit Dog, does agility and clicker training, and would be a prime candidate as a surrender to rescue in the wrong home, but is my ideal and number one dog
), or do you want a medium active dog, or do you want a sweet and quiet dog that will be relaxed and enjoy moderate exercise? I own dogs of all these personalities and they are very different.
All cavaliers are loving and sweet if they are good examples of the breed (hence breeder quality is important). Boys in my experience do not really ever tend to be the 'extreme' of a breed (this is kind of like saying boys/men are the extreme of the human race -- how do you define the human race?
) -- the extreme of a breed is again *the most outgoing and intense and active personality* whether male or female (and this is why so many people get the worst possible dog for them when they pick 'the puppy that picked me!' because it went to them first. The most outgoing is going to be the one that goes to you first in most cases...).
All else being equal (which means individuals vary!) boys of ALL breeds do tend to be sweeter and more bonded and attached to owners and females tend to be a bit more aloof and independent, including amongst cavaliers. There are many many previous threads on this topic (use the search function to check them out
) and you will see consistently that breeders on the board, who have raised and trained many cavaliers, in some cases, for decades, all agree with this! But the difference is pretty slight.
Boys sometimes lick, mark and hump, but the only humper and the prime marker in my house is Lily, not my boys. Females lick themselves regularly too -- they also tend to get more urine on them in my experience than boys because they squat their long feathering on their hindquarters right into their pee.
In short, with either gender -- with owning a dog -- it is impossible to avoid dog sexuality and body parts (as well as bowel movements to clean up from the ground, and clean off of them sometimes... :lol
.
I think the breeder consensus here is that they slightly prefer the boys. I do too -- I love all my dogs but I do prefer the personality of the boys. A well trained boy doesn;t mark inside though any more than a housetrained female does, and it is easy to limit how often boys mark outside on walks on the lead (whereas it is impossible for me to limit Lily from squatting and marking a dozen times on a walk, and getting yet more urine on her feathering, but that is just part of owning a dog...
).
So in short: go for an excellent breeder, have the breeder help you select a boy or a girl that suits what you hope for in a puppy that matches your activity level and lifestyle, and i am sure you will be happy.
PS MOST dogs surrendered to me in rescue by owners come to me because they were the wrong match -- always, a too active dog for a home that didn't want a really smart, active dog. An active bored dog starts to get unwanted behaviours and becomes destructive in an attempt to give itself something to do. And the dog ends up being surrendered to rescue. The right match is crucial.
