Cavalier King Charles Spaniel: An Owner’s Guide. Nick Mays

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       Cavalier puppies are particularly appealing, and it is easy to see why so many people fall in love with this attractive breed.

      Indeed, so fond was King Charles II of his little dogs that he issued a royal decree that the King Charles Spaniel should be accepted and granted admission in any public place, even in the august confines of the Houses of Parliament where animals were not usually allowed. This decree is still in existence today in the United Kingdom, and it would be interesting were an adventurous Cavalier owner to try it out on a visit to Westminster. A Black and Tan Cavalier named Magjen True Delight of Devonia (also known as Trudy) did gain free entry to Hampton Court in the 1980s, although her owner had to pay the usual admission charge.

      The King Charles was known widely as a ‘comforte dog’ and doctors even wrote prescriptions with this little dog as the remedy. Some owners were reputed to keep the dogs as a means of deterring fleas and thus avoid the plague.

       Decline of the breed

      As time went by, however, and with the establishment of the Dutch Court of William of Orange, toy spaniels went out of fashion and were replaced in popularity by the Pug. The King Charles Spaniel was subsequently bred with these dogs, resulting in the similar-shaped head of today’s English Toy Spaniel breed. One notable exception to this trend was the strain of red and white King Charles Spaniels that was bred at Blenheim Palace by various Dukes of Marlborough. These dogs were favoured for their sporting prowess as well as their continued charm as lapdogs. Ultimately, they lent their name to the red-and-white patterned Cavalier, which is known today as the Blenheim.

       Ideal show dogs

      Whilst small spaniels still had their admirers, most dogs were kept during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries as working animals. Simple ‘pet dog’ ownership was a luxury afforded only to the very rich. In major British cities, such as London, Manchester and Liverpool, the main canine attractions were bull and bear baiting with the larger bull breeds of dogs, and infamous rat pits, where terriers would be placed in a ring with live rats and wagers taken on how many rats a dog could dispatch in a given space of time. Dog fighting was also a popular pastime.

      However, during the mid-nineteenth century, with many of these cruel ‘sports’ being outlawed, some dog owners began to turn more to ‘showing off’ dogs alongside each other rather than pitting them in combat with each other. In fact, many early dog shows were held in the same public houses where ‘ratting’ used to take place. In this way, the toy spaniel came back into fashion and was sought after as a show dog. These dogs had flat faces, undershot jaws, and domed skulls with long, low-set ears and large, round frontal eyes – typical of the modern King Charles Spaniel.

      When the British Kennel Club was founded in 1873, the King Charles Spaniel became one of the first breeds to have formal standards drawn up and to be recognized as such. Thus the earlier type of dog, as seen in seventeenth-century paintings and favoured by the Merry Monarch, became all but extinct.

       The Cavalier challenge

      By the early twentieth century, dog showing was well established in the UK, USA and many European countries.

       Cavaliers make great pets for people of all ages, no matter what their lifestyle.

       The distinctive Ruby Cavalier is probably less popular than the Blenheim.

      Shows, such as Crufts in the UK and Westminster in the United States, were viewed as the pinnacle of the dog showing year. In the mid-1920s, an American Spaniel enthusiast named Roswell Eldridge came to England to search for foundation stock for toy spaniels that resembled those in the old paintings, including one by Sir Edwin Landseer of ‘The Cavalier’s Dogs’. He was dismayed that all he could find were the short-faced King Charles Spaniels, commonly known as ‘Charlies’.

      Eldridge tried to get both the Kennel Club and the King Charles fraternity interested in re-establishing the old-type King Charles Spaniel – or the ‘Cavalier’ type after the famous painting – but his overtures were largely ignored.

      However, he was not to be dissuaded and succeeded in persuading the Kennel Club to allow him to offer a cash incentive to breeders to re-create the old-type dogs. He advertised in the 1926 Crufts catalogue, offering prizes at Crufts for three years (later extended to five years) and the princely sum of 25 pounds sterling respectively for СКАЧАТЬ