Cavalier King Charles Spaniel

The Cavalier King Charles spaniel is a breed most aptly described by a single word: tenderness. Bred over the centuries as the darling of courts and the companion of kings, it has mastered one art to perfection — loving people. And it does so without any moderation: the Cavalier loves its family, loves guests, loves the mail carrier, loves the neighbor's dog, and with high probability will love a burglar too, provided he agrees to pet it for a moment. In that small body there's no room for suspicion — only a readiness to embrace the whole world.

And what makes it exceptional among companion dogs, the Cavalier isn't merely a couch potato. Inside it there still sits a spaniel — a dog created for outings, which will gladly set off with you on a walk, wag after a butterfly, and eagerly sniff every bush. It's a charming duality: the Cavalier is just as happy running with you across a meadow as it is, a moment later, curling into a ball on your lap. In it you get both a companion for movement and a master of snuggling — in one small, silky package.

Because if there's one discipline in which the Cavalier is an absolute world champion, it's melting into its human. Seated beside you, it slowly turns into a warm, shapeless puddle of dog, perfectly molded to your side — and it sincerely doesn't understand why it should lie anywhere other than precisely on you. The fact that it's crushing your laptop, book, or hand in the process is secondary to it; what counts is closeness. As a watchdog it's completely hopeless and doesn't hide it in the least — it greets a stranger in the house not with a menacing bark but with an enthusiastic wriggle of its whole body and a look saying “at last, someone new to love.” Fortunately, no one keeps a Cavalier for protection. One keeps it for that boundless, disarming warmth of its.

And it's precisely about the heart that, with this breed, the most important thing must be said — because the heart is here at once the Cavalier's greatest gift and its most tender point, quite literally. These dogs are, you see, strongly prone to mitral valve disease, a heart condition that with age affects a significant part of the breed. It's a hard truth about a dog built of love itself: that its heart of all things requires special care. It sounds serious, because it is — but there's good news in it too. A great deal depends on everyday care, and one of the most important ways to protect that heart is within your reach: at the bowl.

Because nothing burdens the heart like excess weight — and the Cavalier, unfortunately, combines a love of food with only a moderate willingness for longer exertion and with that gaze of its, which is truly hard to refuse. Every extra kilogram is additional work for a heart that's already prone to strain.

Because the Cavalier gives you nothing by halves. It offers its whole heart — trustingly, at once, and without any hedging — and asks in return only that you help it take care of that heart.

Keep it in lean form, keep up with its checkups, and give it what it desires most — closeness — and you'll give this small, warm optimist exactly what it deserves: as many years as possible of snuggling into you with the unshakeable conviction that the world is good and you are the best thing in it. Because the Cavalier truly is all heart. Our role is to make sure it beats as long as possible.