01/22/2025
The evolution of the modern-day cavalier King Charles spaniel is somewhat unique.
THE CAVALIER KING CHARLES SPANIEL BREED IS BRACHYCEPHALIC.
The evolution of the modern-day cavalier King Charles spaniel is somewhat unique. While the ancestors of most all currently brachycephalic breeds had significantly longer muzzles, the most recent ancestors of the CKCS had extremely short ones. Up until the late 1800s and early 1900s, most of the cavalierβs ancestors had relatively long muzzle lengths. (Such as the 1850 King Charles spaniel below.) Then, beginning in the 1890s through the 1920s, the breed standard called for their snouts to be bred much shorter. By 1910, champion King Charles spaniels (see one such 1910 champion below) had snouts no longer than those of today's pugs and French bulldogs.
A consequence of this evolution was first to create very short-muzzled dogs and then produce from those dogs a longer-muzzled version which became the cavalier. This amounted to an accordion affect which did not straighten out the damage done when the King Charles spaniel breed standard demanded much shorter muzzles.
Read all about it here: https://cavalierhealth.org/brachycephaly.htm
