'Zealous little hunters'

Most if asked about the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel think of them as most of the dogs classified as a Toy ​breed, a lap dog with not much use other than a companion dog. Not many would know of their sporting ancestry and know that some were not happy when the Kennel Club classified the Cavalier as a Toy breed as they considered them a Sporting breed and rightly so. 
The Cavalier King Charles was an attempt to get back to what the King Charles originally was, but I feel being classified as a Toy breed has hampered it truly getting back to what it originally was, a small sporting spaniel used for flushing.

Primrose and Jessica

​In the Sportsman’s Cabinet, published in 1803, these descriptions can be found of what was known at the time as the Marlborough latterly the Blenheim Spaniel which was eventually merged with the King Charles, "These are invariably red and white with very long ears, short noses, and black eyes; they are excellent and indefatigable, being in great estimation with those sportsmen who can become possessed of the breed."  and "they were one and all (red and white) zealous hunters in the field but required much trouble to break," 
In the early 1800's Major Harding Cox describes a day out with the Blenheims at Blenheim Palace ` I once saw a small pack of these pretty little fellow perform prodigies of valour in covert and hedgerow, throwing their tongues for all they were worth, giving their quarry no peace, until they bustled him into the open`. 

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And yet for all the breeding away from their sporting ancestry, it still remains for some of them. The video opposite shows Primrose and Jessica looking for rats under the kennel we have out in the stables. The kennel sits on a wooden pallet surrounded by straw bales. 
The video starts with me helping Jessica, as the children had got worried she could not get out from under the pallet, but as you will see, she was not stuck. Jessica is our Cavalier who lost a back leg in April 2014  Jessica is home and you can see it certainly does not hold her back. 

I was interested to know how narrow the gap was that they were passing through under the pallet, so measured it and they are managing to wriggle through a 4 1/2 inch tall gap.