Ch. Dreamridge Daphne of Kings Court – bred by Chris Thax- ton, owned by Tom O’Neal, and shown by Ron Fabis. First bitch to go BISS at the National.
Ch. Debonaire Double Jeopardy – bred and owned by Deb Bowman and shown by Ron Fabis. Multi BIS winner and BISS winner at the ETSCA specialty, win- ning twice. He, along with Curtis, won the National BOV three times, always against each other. Alex won BIS twice and Curtis once. Two lovely dogs battling it out three years in a row is pretty special to see.
to much nose and/or a lower jaw that doesn’t have enough curve or both. The head is large compared to the size of the dog and always larger in mature dogs than in bitches. When comparing photos of the same dog, it is always interesting to see the change in size over the years. In young dogs, you want to see lots of dome and many times it will be more narrow, from side to side. The bitch’s head will usually fill out with age, the dog’s a lot more so, and it will also take them 2 or 3 years to show this maturity. The body of the Charlie has most of the same charac- teristics of the other small spaniels. When looking at the outline, it should be compact, cobby and square, and I might add, deep. This is a dog of substance, and the old standard went so far as to say “Pug like”. In puppies, it is always nice to see “thick” puppies, pup- pies with plenty of bone and substance. Charlies are a toy breed but there should always be a lot to them. Never weedy, when the body is gone over you should feel bulk under that hair. They really are big dogs in small packages. In Pekes they use the term, “they pick up heavy.” If picked up, Charlies would feel the same. It’s surprising how heavy they are. Many years ago Ron Fabis and I played around with weights and heights. In most cases, in mature dogs, they always weighted around 1 to 2 pounds heavier then they were tall. A dog that measured around 13 inches at the shoulder, usually weighted around 14 to 15 pounds. These were all successful show dogs in good weight. Several had won BOB at the National and also BIS’s and Toy Groups. We did this for sev- eral years and always came up with the same result. The more we did this the more fascinating it became. It wasn’t so much the size of the dog but the combina- tion of the weight to size.
Figure 1. English Toy Spaniel Breed Standard - Ideal Head. Head study from the Judge’s Seminar booklet.
The eyes should be large but never bulging and very dark. Black is better. With black this helps denote a melting softness. The late Charlie breeder, Chris Thaxton, always described them as being “kissy faced”, one of my favorite descriptions. You can never get that with light eyes or with to much white showing. The nose leather should always be large, wide open and black. The last thing any short faced dog needs is pinched nostrils. The nose sits back at an angle, the top back into the skull more so then the bottom. We call this lay back. When a Charlie person talks about lay back, they are usually describing nose placement, not shoulders (see Figure 1). The head is made up of intertwining circles, the top making up the skull and the other the muzzle. The muzzle is fleshy, thick and well cushioned. The jaw itself curves up and slightly back toward the nose and should never be straight. A straight jaw usually denotes
48 • T op N otch T oys , N ovember 2022
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