As you are in Pennsylvania, I would strongly advise talking to Anne Eckersley, a reputable, health testing breeder who is also involved with one of the national clubs and would be very familiar with breeders to support and breeders to avoid. I know she will give you an honest opinion as well as advice. You can find contact details on her website, for
Chadwick Cavaliers.
Be very cautious -- indeed get your deposit back -- if the parent dogs are Irish imports.
I am going to be blunt, simply because it is unusual for a really reputable, health testing breeder to have puppies available on very short notice and so there may be some elements that are missing that you aren't aware about, because you are really new to this lovely breed
. My own advice is: I would NOT consider a puppy from any breeder who has not MRId the parents for syringomyelia, and this is something you will want to immediately check and also to see the certificates for. This is a widespread neurological problem that can be potentially devastating and costly (three of my five cavaliers have SM, and the most affected dog is on over $100 worth of medication each month) -- and all indications are that at least 50% of cavaliers are eventually affected by it (though most will remain asymptomatic).
I also would not consider simple AKC registration to be adequate -- you really want a breeder who is at least involved with one of the two national breed clubs -- ACKCSC or CKCSC. Generally CKCSC is considered better in terms of health focus.
Too many people here have ended up with serious heart break and massive costs due to getting puppies from breeders who have no idea at all to what extent their lines are affected by SM (ALL lines (and especially some of the well-known champion lines) seem to carry the genes as almost all dogs MRI scanned have been shown to have the pre-existing condition of CM -- eg their skulls are, in almost all cases, at least slightly too small for their brains).
It is really important to grill the breeder and to personally see the health certificates because there is a lot of deception in this area and unless heart tests for example were done close to the time of the breeding of the dogs, they also have little meaning.
There are a number of puppy buyer guides linked to on the homepage in the right-hand column including our own cavalier talk guide which go through the specifics of the health certificates and what to ask the breeder.
Why does this matter? Setting aside the lifelong health of each individual dog, and the severe costs that will end up with the owner for affected dogs: Only by supporting the breeders who MRI scan and properly test in all the other areas, does this breed have any hope of a future. It is under serious health pressure both neurologically and with their hearts, two conditions which are now reducing the average lifespan of these dogs by several years and which bring a lot of pain to both the dogs and owners who have to see them through these illnesses. It is really, really important for every Cavalier owner to be familiar with these conditions and to understand what to look for over the lifetime of their dog, and what an important role every puppy buyer has in trying to protect this breed by only supporting fully health testing breeders.
We are all here because we love this breed, but there will not be one of us who eventually is not touched by either heart disease or neurological disease because the rates of both are so high in cavaliers. Nearly every single cavalier will eventually have a heart murmur if the dog lives till age 10, for example, and half of us will find our dogs have very early onset murmurs by age 5 which are more likely to compromise their life and shorten their lifespan.
It's just so important to try to ensure that this breed is still there in the coming decades–there are already researchers who believe it may not
-- and very central to that survival is the choice every puppy buyer makes on which breeder to support. Just be sure you are supporting one that is testing properly . OFA heart reports are only a basic starting point for research ( like verifying that a driver actually has a drivers license) and do not indicate of themselves a breeder who is properly heart testing in a timely and meaningful way or is testing for the other significant problems in this breed.
