Understanding Heart Murmurs (MVD)
Erickson Cavaliers has never produced a puppy with a heart murmur past the age of 16 weeks. (April 2025)
Darby (Winnie's puppy)
Cavalier King Charles Spaniel
Finding a heart murmur when examining a CKCS is very common. In fact, by five years of age over 50% of CKCS's have a heart murmur, and by ten years of age almost all will have a murmur.
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Veterinary cardiologists began compiling statistics on Cavaliers with MVD murmurs in the United Kingdom in 1990. Since then, cardiologists have examined the hearts of many thousands of CKCS's, and have found that roughly 10% of cavaliers by age one year have MVD murmurs, 20% aged between one and two years have murmurs, and it is very rare for a Cavalier at age ten to not have, at the very least, a low grade MVD murmur.
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Grades of Mitral Valve Disease Murmurs
Mitral valve mumurs are graded from the mildest and least audible, Grade 1, to the loudest and most turbulent, Grade 6. Most CKCS's show a gradual progression in the loudness of the MVD murmur.
GRADE 1 (I): A Grade 1 murmur can be heard with a stethoscope in a quiet room.
GRADE 2 (II): A Grade 2 can be consistently heard with the stethoscope.
GRADE 3 (III): Grade 3 murmurs are louder and are heard as soon as the stethoscope is applied.
GRADE 4 (IV): Grade 4s are quite loud, and the vibration can be felt with fingertips without a stethoscope.
GRADE 5 (5): A Grade 5 murmur is louder still, with precordial "thrill".
GRADE 6 (VI): Grade 6 is so loud
it can be heard with the stehoscope removed from the chest, or even without using the stethoscope.
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Soft heart murmurs (grades 1-2.5) can occur in young animals and are of no consequence to them. These types of murmurs are called "innocent" murmurs. They are soft and usually go away by 14 weeks of age.
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Loud heart mumurs (grades 3-6) in a new puppy and soft heart murmurs that persist beyond 16 weeks of age should be evaluated by a cardiologist.​​
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Outstanding Quality
We take several preventative steps to ensuring our families receive a healthy puppy. First, we take the time, travel the country, and pay the financial price to secure a well bred puppy with breeding rights. In this process we procure strong breeding lines with all the cutting edge health testing available to us. Second, we continue to take our dogs to the Veterinarian often. We certify our dogs with OFA yearly, and then place that information on-line for you to see. As a third line of defence, our fur babies are fed top of the line, human grade, high quality, air dried dogfood. And to top it all off we keep our pooches on Breeder's Edge vitamins all year long and then utilize their line of pregnancy specific or nursing specific vitamins to ensure there are no health gaps in their nutrition.
Safeguards
Greta (Winnie's puppy)
Our Policy
Bo (Winnie's puppy)
We have all of our puppies checked by our Veterinarian after birth, and then again at 6 weeks old. If there is a problem or heart murmur we will fully disclose all the information on our puppy. The buyer may then decide if they would like to keep the puppy or opt out and wait for a puppy from the next litter. If there is a grade 1-2.5 murmur the puppy can go home with you and you will need to follow up with your veterinarian around week 16. If your puppy still has a murmur then at that time you can contact us back ( with documentation from your veterinarian who will need to contact our vet) and we will either reimburse you 15% up to and not exceeding $500.00 or take the puppy back and you can wait for a puppy from our next litter.
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Good News!!: Every one of our puppies has been murmur free by week 14.
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