King Charles Spaniel
The older court spaniel, the one the Cavalier was bred back away from.
Vital stats
| Size | Small · 25–27 cm |
| Weight | 3.6–6.3 kg |
| Life expectancy | 10–12 years |
| Energy | Low — up to 30 min/day |
| Shedding | Moderate, year-round |
| Coat | Long, silky and straight · Blenheim, Tricolour, Black and Tan, Ruby |
| Group | Toy · Companion (FCI №128, Group 9) · AKC |
| Origin | Great Britain |
Breed traits
Friendliness
Care
Mind
Temperament
The FCI standard gives three words for the character: reserved, gentle and affectionate. The reserve is the part people miss when they arrive expecting a Cavalier. A King Charles greets its own household warmly and then leaves the visitor alone, polite rather than pleased, and it rarely crosses the room to introduce itself. It is quiet for a toy dog, slow to bark at noises outside, and content to spend the day within reach of one person. The spaniel is still in there, in the nose and in the willingness to work for food. What it does not have is the Cavalier's indiscriminate warmth, and the people who keep the breed tend to count that as a feature.
Habits & quirks
Warms up on its own schedule
It will sit out a visitor's first hour, decide privately, then climb on. Hurrying the introduction sets the whole thing back a visit.
Picks a lap and keeps it
Once it has chosen a person for the evening it stays put. Given the choice between a toy and dozing against a leg, the leg wins.
Audible at rest
The short muzzle comes with snuffles and a proper snore. Steady familiar breathing is normal for the breed; new noise, or noise that worsens in heat or after a walk, is a vet appointment.
The spot
A Blenheim is meant to carry a clear chestnut mark about the size of a penny in the centre of the skull, and the standard still asks for it. It is one of the few show points you can check from the sofa.
Care
| Health screening | Ask for the parents' cardiologist heart results, MRI screening for Chiari-like malformation and syringomyelia, current eye certification and patella scores. A breeder with none of that is a breeder to leave. |
| Heat and breathing | A short face makes hot weather and hard exercise riskier than they are for a longer-nosed toy. Walk early or late through summer, use a harness instead of a collar, and tell any vet planning anaesthetic that this is a brachycephalic breed. |
| Grooming | Brush the silky coat and the long ear feathering two or three times a week. Wipe and dry the face and the eye area after meals and wet walks, and check inside the heavy ears. |
| Exercise and company | Half an hour of walking plus a bit of play covers a day, which is why the breed does well in a flat. It was bred to sit with people and copes badly with an empty house from morning to night. |
Common questions
How is a King Charles Spaniel different from a Cavalier?
Two breeds, two standards. The King Charles (FCI 128) came first: 3.6–6.3 kg, with a domed skull, a short upturned muzzle and a well-defined stop. The Cavalier (FCI 136) is a 1920s recreation of the older, longer-nosed spaniel from seventeenth-century paintings, and it is the bigger dog at roughly 5.4–8 kg, with a flatter skull and a real muzzle. Both come in the same four colours, Blenheim, Tricolour, Black and Tan and Ruby, which is why photographs confuse people. The head settles it. American buyers have one more hurdle: the AKC registers this breed as the English Toy Spaniel.
What is the health picture, honestly?
Mixed, and worth knowing before you commit. Mitral valve disease runs through the toy spaniels; an OFA cardiac survey of 189 King Charles Spaniels found 2.1% affected, seventh worst of 105 breeds, and that number understates lifetime risk because the disease shows up with age. Chiari-like malformation and syringomyelia, the neurological pair the Cavalier is known for, are reported in this breed as well, at lower rates and without the large MRI datasets the Cavalier has. The short face brings the brachycephalic costs with it: narrower airways, poor heat tolerance, more anaesthetic risk. Eye trouble such as distichiasis, corneal dystrophy and entropion turns up more often than in the average toy, and so do loose kneecaps. Plenty of King Charles Spaniels live their 10 to 12 years without any of it, but the breeder's paperwork matters more here than the puppy's face.
Why are they so hard to find?
Numbers. The Royal Kennel Club logged 36 puppies in 2023 and 56 in 2025, so British litters are usually spoken for before they are born and waits run in months. The United States has a slightly deeper pool, but only if you search the right name, because the AKC has registered the breed as the English Toy Spaniel since 1886 and typing 'King Charles Spaniel' into a puppy site will hand you Cavaliers. Start at the national breed clubs.