There seemed to be a lot of rules with purchasing a Cavalier puppy....we had to have a fenced yard, we shouldn't have small children, we should have someone home most of the time, some of them wanted to come to our home to make sure it would be "acceptable." And, we had to sign an agreement that we would have her spayed or neutered as soon as the puppy was old enough. We were not thinking of showing or breeding our puppy, we were "just" looking for a pet...our empty nest puppy. Some of the breeders snubbed their nose at us....saying, "oh, you "just" want a pet." Others mentioned having co-ownership of a "show" quality puppy that would be with a handler on weekends to attend shows. "I don't think so!" We had decided that since our 30th wedding anniversary was coming up, the puppy would be a gift we were going to give to each other. I knew that the traditional gift for 30 years was pearls and when I mentioned to my husband, that I thought I would get pearls, he said...."we'll name the dog Pearl!" I thought that was a great idea and so we had "her" name all picked out....all we had to do now was find our little "girl." (I got a pearl necklace and earrings anyway)

We really wanted to find our puppy during the summer since I am home then and wanted to have the time to train her, but some of the breeders weren't going to have puppies available till the fall, others were just too far away and some had just turned us off with all their demands.

We got that fateful call one Sunday morning, July 23, 2000, from a breeder we had been in contact with from Long Island, NY, about two hours from our home. She said that she had one puppy, a female, who had been promised to a family in California, but that they had called and wanted to wait because of an illness in their family and asked if we wanted to come and see her. YES! we are on our way.

We arrived at her home and took a little time getting acquainted in her living room before she went downstairs and came back up with this little blenheim puppy. She put her down on the floor so we could check her out. She was quiet but seemed to be playful. I tried to turn her over on her back as I had read, but she wasn't real crazy about that.

I noticed from her markings that this was not a "show" quality puppy from my research that I had done, even though the woman told me we could show her, and breed her if we chose too. We had no intention of showing or breeding her, so that didn't really matter to us. The woman gave us some time to play with her and then asked if were interested. Well... we have one puppy to decide about, we have been waiting for months, we really want to get one in the summer, maybe we should wait to see more puppies? NO...we are in love and this little sweetie is coming home with us today! I noticed that there were no questions.....about a fenced yard, young children in the family, would there be someone home during the day, did we have a crate all ready for her. There was no mention of signing an aggreement to have her spayed.

As she was filling out the paperwork, she talked about how important the right food was and managed to sell us a very large case of canned dog food which was donated to our local pet shelter after our first visit to our veterinarian. We were told that "Pearl" came from Ireland, where this woman's family breeds Cavaliers. She showed us her lineage and we couldn't believe that Pearl's grandmother was Cathy's Little Pearl! I tried to stay in contact with this woman to let her know how Pearl was doing, I thought for sure she would want to know how her puppy was getting along...but she never called or contacted us to follow up on Pearl . I started to wonder if maybe Pearl had been bred in some puppy mill...maybe from Ireland, maybe not.

We would always joke about our experience with this "breeder" and say that Pearl was the ultimate rescue because we paid $1000.00 for her in 2000, which we felt was alot of money for a puppy. Every year, when we would celebrate Pearl's birthday, we would comment on how that $1000.00 was the best investment we had ever made. Pearl had won our hearts on that fateful day in July of 2000, and there wasn't a day in the almost 12 years that she was with us that we weren't blessed by having her in our lives. And, as it turns out, she had her fenced yard, she did not have any small children spoking at her, although she was always good with our granddaughters, she had my husband home with her everyday because he works from home, she was never boarded....because we just couldn't bear to leave her anywhere without us, she had her walks at the park, she got her traveling time in the car, which she loved, she even had her crate all ready for her on that first day... but the minute she was old enough, she ended up sleeping in the big bed with us!