Dogs and All about Them

There are now four recognised varieties of the English Toy Spaniel, or, more properly speaking, five, as the Marlborough Blenheims are considered a distinct type. The latter are said by some to be the oldest of the Toy Spaniels; by others to have been first brought over from Spain during the reign of Charles II. by John Churchill, first Duke of Marlborough, from whose home, Blenheim Palace, the name was derived, and has ever since been retained. If we may take the evidence of Vandyck, Watteau, Francois Boucher, and Greuze, in whose pictures they are so frequently introduced, all the toy Spaniels of bygone days had much longer noses and smaller, flatter heads than those of the present time, and they had much longer ears, these in many instances dragging on the ground. The Marlborough Blenheim has retained several of the ancestral points. Although this variety is of the same family, and has the same name, as the short-nosed Blenheim of the present day, there is a great deal of difference between the two types. The Marlborough is higher on the legs, which need not be so fully feathered. He has a much longer muzzle and a flatter and more contracted skull. The Marlborough possesses many of the attributes of a sporting Spaniel; but so also does the modern Blenheim, although perhaps in a lesser degree. He has a very good scent. Mr. Rawdon B. Lee states that "the Blenheims of Marlborough were excellent dogs to work the coverts for cock and pheasant, and that excepting in colour there is in reality not much difference in appearance between the older orange and white dogs (not as they are to-day, with their abnormally short noses, round skulls, and enormous eyes), and the liver and white Cockers which H. B. Chalon drew for Daniel's Rural Sports in 1801."