December, 1915 
37 
Because he is little, is poor reason for de¬ 
priving him of the fun of a good romp. 
I myself have seen a champion of cham¬ 
pions take a tennis ball away from a fox 
terrier in a rough and tumble game of 
catch. The dog was Ch. Windfall, and I 
truly believe his mistress, the Honorable 
Mrs. Lytton, was more proud of his sport¬ 
ing proclivities than of all his cups and 
medals. 
Growing Craze for Tiny Dogs 
Of late years there has been a perfect 
craze for Lilliputians. In early Victorian 
days, the average weight was about fifteen 
pounds; by 1890, this had been lowered to 
twelve pounds, while to-day about nine 
pounds is the average of the best show 
specimens, and some midgets that tip the 
scales at only five pounds have been exhib¬ 
ited to our wondering eyes. Of course, 
smallness is a proper attribute of the toy 
spaniel, but mere smallness ought never to 
be won at the sacrifice of soundness. It is 
good to see that the pendulum is swinging 
back, and more and more admirers of the 
breed are refusing to exchange good health 
for diminutiveness alone. 
A glance at the old prints and paintings 
shows that since the days of King Charles 
toy spaniels have changed in other ways 
besides size. Very notably the foreface has 
been shortened and the skull become more 
domed; the terms “noseless” and “apple 
skulled” have been coined for the dog 
fancier’s vocabulary to describe these fancy 
points in this breed. The very short face, 
with the high skull, the large, soft eyes, and 
the long silky ears are all unmistakably at¬ 
tractive, but, like any fancy points, they 
are always in danger of being carried to 
ridiculous extremes. Nobody likes to see 
them so exaggerated that they result in a 
paralyzed tongue, hanging perpetually from 
the corner of the mouth, and in weak, 
watery eyes. However, excluding a few 
freaks and cripples, our toy spaniels are 
better looking than the dogs that won 
Charles Stuart’s heart. 
Colors and Classes 
Toy spaniels are divided into four dif¬ 
ferent varieties, but these varieties, which 
are based upon color, are not distinct 
breeds. Full brother and sister of impec¬ 
cable lineage may, because of their coloring, 
fall into different classes, and indeed all 
four varieties have sometimes appeared in 
one litter. In the romantic names of these 
different varieties, the toy spaniel artfully 
reminds you of his historic past, and very 
properly have toy spaniel lovers continued 
to cherish these names. The blacks, with 
tan buttons over the eyes, tan cheeks and 
tan leggins, are the King Charles, and tri¬ 
colors, white with black spots and tan 
points, are the Prince Charles, these orig¬ 
inal colors being called after the breed’s 
first royal patron and his son. The white 
ones with tan markings (these should have 
a white blaze up the face and a tan spot 
“the size of a sixpence” on the crown of 
their heads) are called Blenheim, after the 
castle of another of their friends, the first 
Duke of Marlborough. The solid colored 
reds are the ruby spaniels. 
His proud position the toy spaniel un¬ 
doubtedly owes to the patronage of King 
Charles, but he was no upstart favorite 
picked out of the gutter. In 1576 Dr. 
Caius, the same who founded Caius Col¬ 
lege, Cambridge, praised toy spaniels, ex¬ 
tolling especially their medicinal properties, 
a “fancy point” that alas seems to have 
been lost! “We find,” said the learned 
doctor, “that these lyttle dogges are good 
to assauge ye sicknesse of ye stomacke, be¬ 
ing oftentimes thereunto applied as a plas¬ 
ter preservative, or borne in ye bossom of 
ye diseased and weake person, which ef¬ 
fect is performed by thyr moderate heate. 
Moreover, ye disease and sicknesse 
chaungeth its place, and entereth (though 
it be not precisely marked) into ye dogge, 
which experience can testify, for these kind 
of dogges sometimes fall sicke and some¬ 
times die, without any harme outwardly 
enforced; which is an argument that ye 
disease of ye gentleman or gentlewoman, 
or owner whatsoever, entereth into ye dogge 
by ye operation of heate intermingled and 
infected.” 
Originally the spaniel family came from 
Spain, but like his cousins, the cocker, 
the Clumber, the field, and the Sussex span¬ 
iels, the toy spaniel is a thoroughly English 
product, developed from the original Span¬ 
ish stock. Almost from the first he has 
been the toy dog of royalty, and now, since 
the passing of the pug and the Yorkshire 
terrier, and the almost complete extinction 
of the toy black and tan, he remains, among 
all the exotic novelties in toy dogs, the only 
Anglo-Saxon to hold his own. 
Among the foreign novelties, his latest 
and now most serious rival is the Pekinese 
spaniel, who has held a proud place in China 
very like his own in England. 
Where the Peke Came From 
The pedigree of the English toy dog can 
be traced back pretty clearly, but very fit¬ 
tingly the origin of his Celestial rival is 
“shrouded in mystery.” Peke owners talk 
very glibly of their favorite “having been 
bred in the Forbidden City for thousands 
of years.” They also delight to tell that 
the flat, square noses of the breed were 
developed through countless generations by 
forcing the puppies to chew thin strips of 
meat nailed to flat boards. Things cer¬ 
tainly do not change quickly in China, and 
it may be the Pekinese has been the fash¬ 
ionable dog since before the Christian era, 
while the nose theory is well supported by 
the cruel binding of the Chinese women’s 
feet. But the Pekinese is indeed “shrouded 
in mystery,” and these good stories are not 
good history. It is not likely that the aris¬ 
tocratic palace dog appeared on the scene 
before his sturdy fellow-countryman, the 
chow-chow, and he probably scrambled 
over the Great Wall with some of the in¬ 
vading Tartars. The late James Watson, 
who was a patient and trustworthy delver 
into canine origins, found a carved crystal 
the Metropolitan Museum, in New 
(Continued on page 60) 
m 
Toy spaniels are classified according to 
colorjthis type (center) is a Prince Charles 
"Romford Pekin Lou," a prize-winning bis¬ 
cuit owned by Mrs. Hugh J. Chisholm 
A row of descendants from the Forbidden 
City, destined to be future champions 
