Cavalier King Charles Spaniels are a delightful breed with average intelligence and medium energy needs. While all dogs need physical and mental stimulation, cavaliers often adjust to our lifestyles and activity level.  Some dogs naturally prefer a more athletic household, enjoying dog sports and frequent excursions.  Other dogs relish in their lap-dog designation and are fulfilled with moderate activity.  All dogs enjoy sniffing opportunities and mental enrichment, and most pups benefit from access to chews and toys.  Generally sociable, cavaliers get along well with other dogs with similar, gentle play styles, but are easily a target of rough play styles or aggressive attacks as they are very slow to defend themselves.  Children should always be supervised around cavaliers (as with all dogs) as rough handling, playing dress up, sitting on dogs, and unwanted pets and hugs can cause much distress to the dogs with only subtle stress signals displayed.  Dog should always be given a private space to eat and enjoy high value chews, without feeling threatened by other dogs or people.  Never pet your dog while they are eating, chewing on a toy/bone, or sleeping.  Because they are generally social and enjoy attention, many cavaliers make good therapy dog candidates, but not all dogs enjoy attention from strangers and/or children.  Learn more about when your dog might be asking for pets or space by watching this video.  

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There is never a need for pain, stress, or fear while training your dog.  Certain tools are designed to create a behavior change caused by the threat of pain, stress or fear.  Some of those include invisible fences, choke collars, prong collars, choke chains, spray bottles, cans of pennies, and depending on how they are used, martingale collars and head harnesses.  While it is true that any stimulus can cause stress or fear, and therefore be aversive, we must work to protect the animals in our care from inhumane training techniques.  Not only are they unethical, positive training techniques, which simply reward our dogs for desirable behaviors, are faster, increase the bond between animal and person, and increase our dog's quality of life.  And it is SO much more fun to give your dog a cookie than to cause them pain or stress.