PLEASE HELP!! Cav History

**Cavashay** · 7th June 2006, 03:43 PM

Hi! Does any one here have a good link to history info on the Cav/King Charles?
I am SOOO frustrated as i read and readand there are so many contradictions!
By history i mean origin,before import to england.
Her is my understanding.. breifly! (Sorry..I hate not knowing!!)
The Cav type is THOUGHT to originate in japan,and can trace its history there back to 2000 BC.Also very popular in france before being brought to England by the Royal Family in the 1500's.
Short muzzles came in fashion and the cav type became the King Charles Spaniel.
Dog Fancier bloke visits England looking for the spaniels,but those he found didnt resemble the original breed,so the prize was offered at crufts and the Cav was reconized in 1945....

HELP!!!

**Karlin** · 7th June 2006, 08:22 PM

There is very little that can be certain about early history and no one really knows where the spaniel type dog came from -- hence the contradictions.

It is all guesswork; there's even uncertainty about the breeds that might have gone in to making the modern cavalier as reconstructed in the 20s and 30s onwards, in response to Roswell Eldridge's competition prize for a spaniel to most closely match that of the old style in the King Charles portraits. Some say chins for example were used, not just long-nosed Charlies, but all this is much disputed from all I have read.

On the web, Barnaby's Cavalier Attitudes has a good history here:

http://www.cavalierkingcharles.com/history.html

And breeder Sue Newnes has done this study:

http://www.penquitecavaliers.co.uk/history.html

Of the classic breed books in this area:

Margaret Workman has a detailed history which goes back to the BC era history of small dogs, in her book The Cavalier King Charles Spaniel. Mary Forward's The Cavalier King Charles Spaniel has some history from about 1500 onwards. A similar period is covered in Evelyn Booth's All About the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, and similarly a small bit in Sheila Smith's CKCS Today.

I think what you really want is a more general history of the domestic dog which might make some guesses as to the origins of toy spaniels in Europe. Something along those lines would give more info than any of the cavalier books, most likely.

Sue Newnes cites this book, which I have seen mentioned elsewhere too:

Toy Dogs and their Ancestors by the Hon. Mrs. Neville Lytton

The problem is, how authoritative are such books? Are they more hobbyist tracts or are they based on sound research?