Cavalier King Charles Spaniel Trivia
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47 free Cavalier King Charles Spaniel trivia questions with answers — nature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Cavalier King Charles Spaniel trivia quiz covers the little toy spaniel from Charles II's court to Ronald Reagan's White House. History questions run through the Duke of Marlborough's red-and-white hunting spaniels at Blenheim, the legend of the Duchess's thumbprint, Judith Blunt-Lytton's crosses with the Toy Trawler Spaniel, Roswell Eldridge's 1926 silver prize for 'old type' Blenheims, the first standard based on Ann's Son, the wartime collapse of breeding stock, Plantation Banjo's outsized influence and AKC recognition in 1995. The breed section covers the four recognised colours and their King Charles Spaniel equivalents, how a Cavalier differs from the English Toy Spaniel, weight, feathering, temperament and Coren's ranking, and the health story every owner should know: mitral valve disease, syringomyelia, episodic falling, glue ear, macrothrombocytes and the 2022 Norwegian court ruling. The Parliament urban legend and famous owners from Queen Victoria to Margaret Thatcher round it out. Questions run from easy to expert with a difficulty score on each, so it suits a family quiz or a devoted Cavalier owner. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia and breed references and each question carries its citation. Also try our Dogs and English Cocker Spaniel quizzes.
30 of 47 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The 'Cavalier' in the breed's name recalls the nickname of which side in the English Civil War?
Royalists
Royalists. The word began as an insult, thrown by their Puritan opponents at the swaggering, long-haired followers of Charles I.
Q 02Blenheim Palace, which gave the red-and-white Cavalier its name, was the birthplace of which prime minister?
Winston Churchill
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.
Q 03Which duke developed the red-and-white hunting spaniels now called Blenheims at his Oxfordshire palace?
Marlborough
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.
Q 04Legend says the chestnut 'Blenheim spot' on a Cavalier's forehead was pressed there by an anxious duchess's what?
Her thumb
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.
Q 05Which diarist grumbled that Charles II spent a council meeting playing with his dog instead of minding business?
Samuel Pepys
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.
Q 06In Tudor England, ladies' lapdog spaniels like the Cavalier's ancestors went by which name?
Comforters
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'.
Q 07Which rival lapdog arrived with William III's Dutch court and pushed toy spaniels out of fashion?
Pug
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.
Q 08Which court painter portrayed the future Charles II as a child beside two small spaniels?
Anthony van Dyck
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.
Q 09In 1926 American Roswell Eldridge offered British breeders cash prizes for 'old type' spaniels at which dog show?
Crufts
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.
Q 10When the first Cavalier standard was drawn up in 1928, what was placed on the table as its model?
A living dog
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.
Q 11Which animal painter portrayed two King Charles spaniels in the 1845 picture 'The Cavalier's Pets'?
Edwin Landseer
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.
Q 12Which event cut one leading Cavalier kennel from about 60 dogs to three, setting the young breed back badly?
The Second World War
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.
Q 13What blunt nickname did early Cavalier breeders give the long-faced throwback puppies they prized?
Nosey
Q 21Stanley Coren's The Intelligence of Dogs places the Cavalier in which band for obedience?
Average
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.
Q 22Why do Cavalier clubs warn that the breed will never become 'street-wise'?
It chases anything that moves
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.
Q 23What is the most common cause of death in Cavalier King Charles Spaniels?
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.
Q 14Charles II, the spaniel-loving king behind the breed's name, is remembered by which nickname?
The Merry Monarch
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.
Q 15Fearing commercial breeding, the Cavalier's first US club repeatedly voted against joining which organisation?
The American Kennel Club
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.
Q 16Both the British and American breed standards call the little Cavalier sporting, affectionate and what?
Fearless
Fearless. The wording is a reminder that the lapdog descends from little spaniels that were still taken into the field to flush woodcock.
Q 17Which feature sets the Cavalier apart from its close cousin, the King Charles Spaniel?
Its flat skull
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.
Q 18Which Cavalier colour is traditionally called 'Prince Charles' in the King Charles Spaniel?
Tricolour
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.
Q 19Under breed standards, white marks count as a fault on which pair of Cavalier colours?
Ruby and black and tan
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.
Q 20Which of these do the Cavalier's show standards forbid outright?
A trimmed coat
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.
Mitral valve disease
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.
Q 24Which broadcaster's 2008 documentary Pedigree Dogs Exposed showed a Cavalier whose skull was too small for its brain?
The BBC
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.
Q 25The 2022 court ruling that banned Cavalier breeding on welfare grounds also covered which other breed?
Bulldog
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.
Q 26Syringomyelia in Cavaliers is caused by which named malformation at the back of the skull?
Chiari
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.
Q 27In syringomyelia, a painful condition widespread in Cavaliers, fluid-filled pockets form inside which part of the body?
The spinal cord
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.
Q 28Which odd behaviour is a classic sign of syringomyelia in Cavaliers?
Air scratching
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.
Q 29Episodic Falling in Cavaliers is now known to be what kind of disorder?
Neurological
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.
Q 30How does Episodic Falling differ from epilepsy, with which it is often confused?
The dog stays conscious
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.