About Aldermere Cavaliers

Aldermere is a small Cavalier King Charles Spaniel program on eleven acres west of Charlottesville, Virginia. I bred my first litter here in 2007, from a tricolor bitch who had finished her championship the previous autumn. Nearly every Cavalier in the house today descends from her or from the Blenheim line I added in 2012.

We breed particolors only, Blenheim and tricolor, and we whelp one or two litters a year. That limit is deliberate. A Cavalier's heart cannot be judged at two years old, so a responsible program has to keep its dogs, examine them every year, and wait. Our retired champions live out their lives here, and their cardiology reports at nine and ten years old tell us more about a planned litter than anything else we own.

Every breeding dog at Aldermere is examined annually by a board-certified veterinary cardiologist and a veterinary ophthalmologist, has patellas and hips evaluated through the OFA, and is DNA tested for Episodic Falling and Curly Coat Dry Eye. We follow the mitral valve disease breeding protocol without exception: no dog is bred before two and a half years of age, each must be heart-clear at that age, and each must have parents who were clear at five. Several of our dogs have also been MRI screened for syringomyelia, and those results are published beside the rest.

Our dogs are shown in AKC conformation and at the specialty shows of both national Cavalier clubs. We do not show for ribbons alone. A judge's hands on a dog, and a ring full of other breeders' dogs beside it, keep a program honest about structure, movement and the gentle, fearless temperament the standard asks for.

Puppies are born in a whelping room off the kitchen and raised underfoot. They leave between ten and twelve weeks of age, after two veterinary examinations, an ophthalmologist's litter check and a cardiac auscultation, to homes we have come to know well. We remain available for the life of the dog, and any Aldermere Cavalier may return to us at any age, for any reason.