47 Fun Facts About Cavalier King Charles Spaniel

The 'Cavalier' in the breed's name recalls the nickname of which side in the English Civil War?

Royalists. The word began as an insult, thrown by their Puritan opponents at the swaggering, long-haired followers of Charles I.

Blenheim Palace, which gave the red-and-white Cavalier its name, was the birthplace of which prime minister?

Winston Churchill. He was born there in 1874, a grandson of the 7th duke, and in 1908 he proposed to his future wife Clementine in a little temple in its gardens.

Which duke developed the red-and-white hunting spaniels now called Blenheims at his Oxfordshire palace?

Marlborough. The first duke's little spaniels kept their sporting instincts and were worked at flushing game on the estate, which the nation had built for him after his great victory of 1704.

Legend says the chestnut 'Blenheim spot' on a Cavalier's forehead was pressed there by an anxious duchess's what?

Her thumb. The story has her waiting for news of her husband at war and absently pressing a pregnant spaniel's head, so that the pups were born wearing the print.

Which diarist grumbled that Charles II spent a council meeting playing with his dog instead of minding business?

Samuel Pepys. In 1667 he noted 'the silliness of the King, playing with his dog all the while', and the little spaniels that had the run of Whitehall ended up carrying Charles's name.

In Tudor England, ladies' lapdog spaniels like the Cavalier's ancestors went by which name?

Comforters. Court ladies used the little spaniels as bed warmers and living hot-water bottles, and an Elizabethan book on English dogs lists the 'Spaniel gentle, or the comforter'.

Which rival lapdog arrived with William III's Dutch court and pushed toy spaniels out of fashion?

Pug. Its flat face set the fashion, and by Victorian times breeders had bred the same look into the little spaniels, the change the Cavalier's founders later set out to undo.

Which court painter portrayed the future Charles II as a child beside two small spaniels?

Anthony van Dyck. His 1630s portrait of Charles I's three eldest children shows the long-faced spaniels that had all but vanished by 1900, the look the Cavalier's founders bred to bring back.

In 1926 American Roswell Eldridge offered British breeders cash prizes for 'old type' spaniels at which dog show?

Crufts. For five years he put up 25 pounds each for the best dog and bitch with the long face of Charles II's day, the very look breeders had worked for years to breed out.

When the first Cavalier standard was drawn up in 1928, what was placed on the table as its model?

A living dog. Ann's Son, a prize-winning long-faced throwback, stood as the example while club members passed round prints of spaniels from old master paintings.

Which animal painter portrayed two King Charles spaniels in the 1845 picture 'The Cavalier's Pets'?

Edwin Landseer. His canvas is among the old paintings whose spaniels the American Roswell Eldridge went looking for in the 1920s, the search that began the Cavalier's revival.

Which event cut one leading Cavalier kennel from about 60 dogs to three, setting the young breed back badly?

The Second World War. Food was short and travel to the few stud dogs was near impossible, so breeders fell back on very close inbreeding, which kept the Cavalier alive but narrowed its bloodlines.

What blunt nickname did early Cavalier breeders give the long-faced throwback puppies they prized?

Nosey. After 1945 the club listed the flat-faced spaniels known to throw 'nosey' pups, and every Cavalier alive is said to descend from the dogs on that list.

Charles II, the spaniel-loving king behind the breed's name, is remembered by which nickname?

The Merry Monarch. The name reflects the pleasure-loving court he kept after years of Puritan rule, a court where his little spaniels followed him everywhere.

Fearing commercial breeding, the Cavalier's first US club repeatedly voted against joining which organisation?

The American Kennel Club. Members voted recognition down again in 1994, so a breakaway group applied in their place and the breed was finally admitted in 1995.

Both the British and American breed standards call the little Cavalier sporting, affectionate and what?

Fearless. The wording is a reminder that the lapdog descends from little spaniels that were still taken into the field to flush woodcock.

Which feature sets the Cavalier apart from its close cousin, the King Charles Spaniel?

Its flat skull. The King Charles has a high domed head and a pushed-in face, the fashionable look the Cavalier's founders turned their backs on when they bred back to the older type.

Which Cavalier colour is traditionally called 'Prince Charles' in the King Charles Spaniel?

Tricolour. The American standard for the flat-faced breed still lists its black, white and tan dogs as the Prince Charles, while Britain's Kennel Club has dropped the royal label and simply says tricolour.

Under breed standards, white marks count as a fault on which pair of Cavalier colours?

Ruby and black and tan. These are the breed's two whole colours; the other two are built on a pearly white ground, so on them a white patch is simply part of the pattern.

Which of these do the Cavalier's show standards forbid outright?

A trimmed coat. The founders ruled in 1928 that the dog must be 'guarded from fashion' and never 'carved into shape', and the American standard still all but eliminates a clipped dog from the ring.

Stanley Coren's The Intelligence of Dogs places the Cavalier in which band for obedience?

Average. Coren's ranking covers only how quickly a breed learns and obeys commands, and he counts instinct and problem-solving as separate kinds of intelligence that it does not measure.

Why do Cavalier clubs warn that the breed will never become 'street-wise'?

It chases anything that moves. The old spaniel instinct can send it after a bird or a butterfly with no thought for traffic, which is why the breed clubs call a fenced garden or a lead a must.

What is the most common cause of death in Cavalier King Charles Spaniels?

Mitral valve disease. In most dogs this leaky heart valve is a problem of old age, but in Cavaliers a murmur can appear by one or two, and more than half have one by the age of five.

Which broadcaster's 2008 documentary Pedigree Dogs Exposed showed a Cavalier whose skull was too small for its brain?

The BBC. The fallout was swift: it dropped its own coverage of Britain's biggest dog show after 42 years, and the Kennel Club went on to review the standard of every breed.

The 2022 court ruling that banned Cavalier breeding on welfare grounds also covered which other breed?

Bulldog. Judges accepted that neither breed had any truly healthy dogs left to breed from, though an appeal court later lifted the ban on bulldogs and kept it for Cavaliers.

Syringomyelia in Cavaliers is caused by which named malformation at the back of the skull?

Chiari. Vets call the canine form Chiari-like malformation: the skull is too small for the brain inside it, which crowds the opening at its base and dams the fluid that should flow freely around it.

In syringomyelia, a painful condition widespread in Cavaliers, fluid-filled pockets form inside which part of the body?

The spinal cord. The pockets, called syrinxes, give the condition its name, and scans find them in many Cavaliers that never show a single symptom.

Which odd behaviour is a classic sign of syringomyelia in Cavaliers?

Air scratching. The dog paws toward its neck or shoulder without touching the skin, often on one side and while walking, and a collar or lead tends to set it off.

Episodic Falling in Cavaliers is now known to be what kind of disorder?

Neurological. Long taken for a muscle disorder, it was traced in 2011 to a single recessive gene at work in the brain, and a DNA test now lets breeders avoid producing affected puppies.

How does Episodic Falling differ from epilepsy, with which it is often confused?

The dog stays conscious. Its muscles lock so that it may freeze, topple forwards or fall on its side with rigid legs, yet it remains aware throughout, unlike a dog in a typical epileptic fit.

As many as half of all Cavaliers may have which harmless congenital blood quirk?

Abnormally low platelet counts. Many Cavaliers also carry giant platelets as big as red blood cells, and these do the clotting work normally, which is why the low count causes no bleeding trouble.

Primary Secretory Otitis Media, reported almost exclusively in Cavaliers, is better known as what?

Glue ear. A thick plug of mucus fills the middle ear, and because the pain it causes around the head and neck looks so like syringomyelia, some dogs may have been wrongly given the graver diagnosis.

Keratoconjunctivitis sicca, an eye disorder commonly found in Cavaliers, goes by which everyday name?

Dry eye. The dog's own immune system destroys the tear glands, so without daily treatment for life the cornea can ulcerate and scar, and the eye may even go blind.

In 2022, a district court in which city banned the breeding of Cavaliers on welfare grounds?

Oslo. The district court found that no Cavalier could be called healthy enough to breed from, and the ban on the breed stood when the case went to the appeal court later that year.

Beyond the show ring, Cavaliers are frequently put to work as which kind of dog?

Therapy dog. The same trust in strangers that suits hospital visits makes it a hopeless guard, since breed guides say it tends to greet everyone as a friend.

Breed lore, always denied by the club, says early Cavalier breeders quietly crossed in which other spaniel?

Cocker Spaniel. The rumour, which also names the Papillon, arose because the long face came back so quickly; the club insisted its pioneers bred only from long-faced throwbacks in flat-faced litters.

Which US president owned a Cavalier named Rex?

Ronald Reagan. Rex was his 1985 Christmas present to Nancy, arranged through the commentator William Buckley, who owned the dog's brother, and the spaniel was soon helping to switch on the Christmas lights.

Which British monarch doted on a King Charles spaniel named Dash from her teenage years?

Queen Victoria. Dash came to her at thirteen, when she had few friends of her own age, and on the evening of her coronation in 1838 she ran up to her rooms to give him his bath.

A popular myth says Charles II decreed that King Charles Spaniels may enter which building, where dogs are otherwise barred?

The Houses of Parliament. Its own archivists say they have researched the question thoroughly and found no such law, and the Kennel Club has never been able to trace the supposed decree either.

Whose little dog, said to be a small spaniel, was found hiding in her skirts after her execution in 1587?

Mary, Queen of Scots. Witnesses reported that her small dog crept out from under her clothes after the axe fell, and spaniel fanciers have claimed it as one of theirs ever since.

When the Cavalier reached 14th among America's most popular breeds in 2022, which breed had just lost the top spot?

Labrador Retriever. After 31 years at number one it was overtaken that year by the Frenchie, a small companion breed that had itself stood only 14th a decade earlier.

Why did Roswell Eldridge never see the Cavalier breed that his prize money created?

He died soon after. His death came within a year or two of the first prize classes, before any club or standard existed, so he never learned that his little advert had founded a breed.

The American standard says a Cavalier's tail should be doing what whenever the dog is on the move?

Wagging constantly. The standard asks for a tail 'in constant characteristic motion' and carried happily, a sign of the gay, friendly temperament it says matters above all in the breed.

Episodic Falling, a Cavalier disorder in which the muscles suddenly lock, is typically brought on by what?

Exercise. A burst of play or excitement can leave an affected dog rigid and unable to relax its muscles for anything from a few seconds to several minutes, after which it returns to normal.

Luxating patella, an inherited problem seen in Cavalier puppies, is a slipping of which joint?

The knee. Vets grade the looseness from one to four, and in the worst cases, where the kneecap will not stay in its groove, surgery is the usual answer to head off lameness and arthritis.

The Battle of Blenheim, which gave the red-and-white Cavalier its name, was fought in what is now which country?

Germany. Blenheim is the English form of Blindheim, a Bavarian village on the Danube, and the victory won there in 1704 saved Vienna from a French and Bavarian army.

In the United States, the Cavalier's flat-faced cousin is registered as which kind of spaniel?

English Toy. American fanciers gave that name to the whole flat-faced breed and keep 'King Charles' for just one of its four colour varieties, so in a US show ring a King Charles is a colour, not a breed.